In the Fires of Hell
by BlackIceWitch
Summary: Apocalypse Series Book 2. AU 2012. Sequel to In the Shadow of Dark Wings. The Winchesters don't get a break when the new ruler in Hell frees an ancient force. Whispers of a way to shut them out forever keep the expanding force of hunters looking for the answers as they try to protect the scant population that survived the Apocalypse. No slash.
1. Chapter 1 A Promise of Tomorrows

**Chapter 1 A Promise of Tomorrows**

* * *

_**Heaven, 42300 BC**_

The long hall, paved in marble and lit with the diffuse golden light of ten thousand candles, was silent, the ranks of the cherubim and the seraphim still and unmoving. The summons had been clear.

Wait. Be silent.

None would dare shift an itching wing, or allow a single chain to clink in the vast space whose hard surfaces picked up every whisper of sound.

"Our Father has commanded that we look upon his creation," Michael said clearly into the silence, the warm, deep baritone of his voice echoing from marble floors and walls, bouncing from the fluted columns of crystal and jade and opal. "This is Man. And he will rule in our Father's image and filled with His Love for all of eternity."

Necks strained as the ranks of the angels peered toward the raised dais at the end of the great hall, wings rustling with a sibilant hiss as they looked upon the creature that stood beside the greatest of archangels.

"In love and obedience, we do prostrate ourselves before him," Michael continued gravely. "It will be our most joyous responsibility to guard and protect and serve him from this time forth."

"Bow? To … this? I will _not_ bow down to him," one voice spoke out, a pure tenor rebounding back and forth between the walls, thick with distaste. "I shall not bow to a lesser being. He will bow to me."

At once low murmuring filled the hall, voices hushed with shock and astonishment, here and there a faint thread of assent, of admiration, of accord.

Michael turned to his brother, heart falling as he heard the words. "Lucifer … will not? Shall not?"

The archangel's face, an unearthly vision of perfect beauty, of niveous skin and heavenly blue eyes, darkened as he looked at his younger brother. "Wilful brother, you were born and bound to obedience. You _will_ kneel before our Father's creation."

"Never," the Lightbringer snarled furiously. "We are made and cast away, Michael. I will not be thrown aside for some puling, stinking, hair-covered weakling!"

There were some who argued that of all the angels of the Eighth Choir, Lucifer was the most beautiful, the most perfect in form of any. It was the specious argument of those who had too little to think of, Castiel thought, looking at the rage that twisted the archangel's features now. Long hair, red as the embers of a long-burning fire, flowed over broad, pale shoulders, framed an oval face, a strong jawline and high, wide cheekbones. His eyes were striking, an incandescent blue that rarely appeared in nature, outlined by long lashes a darker red than his hair. The full, curving lips were distorted, their plump carmine perfection thinned out as they drew back in wrath.

Castiel shrank back against the wall as he noticed the light in the hall beginning brighten, almost imperceptibly at first, then strengthening as it quickened. He dropped to the floor, knees smarting as they hit the unforgiving marble, the great sigh of wings surrounding him as his brothers did the same, filling the air with the scents of flowers and feathers.

In the centre of the hall, Lucifer stood, defiantly upright, his wings, of pearl and ivory and alabaster, half-raised as his eyes narrowed against the nascent brightness. To his left and right, angels stood with him, four on one side, five on the other, upright in solidarity with the rebellious archangel, but their heads bowed as the light which was not, precisely, light pierced the wavelengths of their forms, outlining metaphysical constructs of bone and tendon, feather and vein and muscle.

"You are cast down to the earthly plane, Morning Star, bringer of Light."

It was not words they heard, nor a voice, nor a sound at all. It was not images they could see nor even a frequency of the natural energy of the universe. It was beyond definition, beyond understanding, and yet it was clear. The ten angels barely had time to take another breath before the constructs they wore like robes of air solidified and they were thrust through the veils that divided the two planes.

* * *

_**Mesopotamia. 43300 BC**_

"I will make them a war they will not forgot, not in a thousand years, not in ten or a hundred thousand," Lucifer said fiercely to his lieutenant as he belted his sword about his waist and stared out over the endless, shifting sands. His followers stood waiting, the hiss of metal and the ring of metal on metal muffled in the open space, fragmented by the ceaseless wind. "One third of the angels in Heaven have already rallied to my side. Michael will not forget this day!"

He was right about that.

Michael, archangel and commander of the Host, never forgot the day he fought over the wide, golden sands of the desert, under a killing sun and a frigid moon. He never forgot how the earth trembled and shuddered beneath their feet as angel battled angel and warriors fell on both sides, blood spilling into the thirsty sand and the land drinking deeply. Or the thousands of days of war that followed it, legions dead, the desert red under the pitiless flat white glare, the sand black under the chill white light of the stars.

He never forgot his brother's screams as he hacked the wings from his shoulders and called the commandment, the ground yawing open at his feet, a widening maw of fire and foul stench and a pulsing red light that echoed the beat of a heart and throbbed insistently as the rebels were pushed closer and closer to the edge of the depthless abyss. It was a thing of this plane, and another plane entirely, the accursed plane, joined along the edges, deep within the mantle of the earth, a prison of soul and spirit and flesh, a cage of fire and heat and torment.

He never forgot the nine who'd followed Lucifer on his insane quest to be greater than their Father, could not rid himself of the memories of their pleading and begging to be spared, to keep their wings, to return … they Fell, one by one into the cage, and their voices remained, rising higher with their desperation until the shrilly oscillating sound had killed every living thing in a hundred mile radius.

He never forgot the way the earth had closed at his command and those screams were silenced.

* * *

_**Kansas City, Kansas. August 2012.**_

Dean looked along the empty street carefully, searching out the shadows, the edges, looking for movement, for a reflection or shape or colour that didn't belong. He nodded once and started moving again when he was sure that none of those were present in the deserted concrete and brick buildings to either side, peripherally aware of the others to his right, attenuated senses taking the flick of their shadows, the soft slur and muted crunch of their footfalls over the rubble that covered the pavements.

Kansas City was not looking good, he thought absently as he turned the corner and searched the next section of street. None of the cities had fared all that well, the skyscrapers burned out and left riddled by the moaning of the wind through their scoured and emptied interiors, the streets still filled with the rapidly rusting and desiccated hulks of vehicles, with glass and metal and the heaped mazes of fallen masonry and the detritus of a world long dead.

There were still places that held things of use, even when the entire area looked and smelled like a mausoleum. The plagues and depredations of those who'd come after, hunting through the remains for food or shelter, had left a surprising number of stores and goods untouched. And if they'd been kept deep enough, stored far enough from the reach of the weather, they were often still intact.

He'd been surprised at the number and variety of electric and electronic equipment they'd been able to salvage, but perhaps he shouldn't've been. Wrapped within their non-degradable coverings, packed into weather-proof crates, stored in the back rooms and basements of the bigger stores in the cities, almost all had worked once the magic lifeblood of alternating current had been fed to them.

Chuck had his optical drives, the writer – _prophet_, Dean corrected himself with a faint half-grin – had hidden himself in an office and gotten down to the nuts and bolts of transferring the library's contents into a digital form that could be searched. Mitch Hennessy was the seventeen-year old survivor Chuck had recruited to do the programming work. The kid was tall and gangly, had hung onto his prescription glasses somehow through the years of dodging croats and demons and being enslaved to work on body removal in Las Vegas, and couldn't hold a conversation about anything other than capacity and binary and the algorithms needed for super-fast search capabilities but the two of them seemed happy enough to hide from the rest of the world and get on with it. Periodically Mitch or Chuck had emerged, with a list of other items required for the task. For this trip he had to find a digital scanner and a selection of OCR software. Whatever that was.

Security cameras, pressure-sensitive alarms, motion-detectors, floodlamps, closed circuit security systems, intercoms, line-of-sight radio equipment, hard drives, portable drives, music systems … all of them had been found, retrieved, installed in the new holds that had risen up in and around the small town and were making life that little bit easier, for the most part.

A soft whistle pulled his thoughts back to the street, and he saw Maurice looking ahead, their target in sight. Nodding, he moved out to take point again, watching the shadows and the piles of crap that filled the street, looking for anomalies and differences.

* * *

_**Lebanon, Kansas**_

Merrin looked around the room, her normally-smooth forehead creased in dissatisfaction. The dispensary, such as it was, barely held enough supplies to cover a GP's surgery, let alone the hospital-sized quantities she was used to. The warehouse in Grand Rapids had been destroyed – it'd been one of the first things that the hunters had checked on after the attack on the camps – but there had to be others, better protected, filled with the products they needed here.

They had the basics, but not enough of them. And the things that were impossible to manufacture now were in very low supply. Turning abruptly, she left the room and walked down the long, cold hall toward the warren of offices that Liev had placed between the kitchens and the store-rooms.

Alex looked up as the older woman strode in without knocking, her finger automatically moving to rest on what she'd been looking at, the young man and woman leaning over the desk to either side of her looking up as well.

Seeing that she wasn't alone, Merrin grimaced. "Sorry, Alex, but something has to be done."

Alex lifted a brow slightly and looked at her. "About what?"

"About our medical supplies," Merrin said, walking to the desk and sitting down stiffly in the chair facing it. "Our _lack_ of medical supplies," she clarified tersely.

"We can go if –" Maria started to say, glancing awkwardly at the desk, the short, curving bob of her hair falling forward over her cheek.

"No," Alex said. "Sit down, you both need to hear this, this is exactly the kind of thing you'll be dealing with."

Maria backed away from the desk and sat in the straight-backed chair to one side. Freddie moved to the armchair beside the filing cabinets. Merrin watched them impatiently. They were both in their early twenties and both had volunteered experience with office work, Maria in bookkeeping during her school vacation time, Freddie as a paralegal, trying to cover his pre-law costs.

"What do we need?" Alex asked, noting the nurse's frustrated expression.

"Everything!" Merrin burst out. "Antibiotics, painkillers, anti-inflammatories – hell, a whole range of pharmaceuticals that we lost in the attack – sutures, needles, syringes, bags, dressings, vaccinations, gauze, swabs, bandages … the monitors we had at Chitaqua were destroyed, the lab and everything in it … Kim and Ray can't do cultures, can't even check simple blood tests without a microscope –"

Alex nodded understandingly, lifting her hand. "Okay, Freddie, Maria, first job – we don't have phone books, so we need to poll the people we've got here, and the people over in Michigan – anyone who has any information on pharmaceutical and medical supply warehouses or manufacturers. Get Tricia and Sandra and Michelle here, and tell Anson we need to talk to Renee over in Tawas. We're looking for locations so it doesn't matter if they know what they held for sure, just any information on where they are – and specifically if anyone knows of any manufacturers or distribution warehouses in Kansas City or Omaha."

The two rose and hurried out of the room, and Merrin heard their voices, low and worried as they walked up the hall and out of earshot.

"It was easier when there weren't so many of us, wasn't it?" she said disparagingly. Alex looked at her and smiled.

"Yeah, but we'll get there eventually. The teams bring back information on what's left in the cities whenever they go out." She leaned back in the chair and let out a long breath. "One thing about the land of the free, the medical industry was huge, so we'll find what we need."

The nurse shook her head. "Maybe we will, and for the most part, maybe we'll be able to keep the equipment in good enough repair to work for twenty years, or fifty. But what are we going to do when we run out?"

Alex looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't know. Figure it out, somehow."

"People will die of infection again. In childbirth. From broken limbs we can't x-ray to set properly. They'll die of misdiagnosis –"

"Even a few years ago, they did that," Alex reminded her softly. "We were overusing the antibiotics and we paid for that, we'll probably be paying for that for a while. At least no one's likely to die of too much cholesterol or diabetes these days."

"You don't think we'll ever get back what we had, do you?"

"I think it's unlikely," Alex admitted reluctantly. "The plagues … nearly all the books are gone, and you know what that means. Learning from trial and error, through experience, that took a long time the first go round."

"But there must be people who know how to do it, to make … everything?"

"There probably are," Alex said, leaning forward across the desk. "But so much was automated, so much was generated in computer-driven factories, from plastics we don't know how to reproduce, I'm not sure how much help that's going to be."

Merrin looked at her sourly. "You're depressing to talk to, you know that?"

Alex laughed. "Yeah, it's been said."

"Why Kansas City and Omaha, specifically?" Merrin asked curiously.

"That's where the teams are right now," Alex told her. "Dean's in Kansas City, and Vince is in Omaha. If there are any there, and the information comes back quickly enough, Bobby can patch that through to them. They have a regular sked on the SSB radios, keep each other up to date."

* * *

_**Kansas City, Kansas**_

Dean and Maurice stood on either side of the trucks, shotguns held loosely ready, eyes scanning the street as Billy, Lee, Danielle and Joseph loaded one and Adam, Zoe, Perry and Isaac loaded the other. Even finding the vehicles had been difficult. The metal frames and engines had all been intact, but the rubber tyres, the hoses, interior seating and electrics had been consumed, and finding replacements had needed another few days of searching through the city for suppliers who'd kept their stock shrink-wrapped in inedible plastics.

Dean glanced across at the progress being made, one eye flicking in a fast wink to the other hunter. The trainees had done well enough, no stupid or careless mistakes made. Rufus had been thorough in most of the things they'd needed drilled into them, despite his endless complaints about their levels of ignorance. Getting the older hunter's cooperation was costing him, though. He'd have to try to find a liquor warehouse if they had time this run, he'd gone through his own stash and started borrowing from Ellen's to satisfy the remuneration demanded.

"All done," Billy said, wiping his hands on his jeans and looking over.

"Yeah, us too," Zoe added, gesturing as Perry tightened the rope over the load. "Where do we go next?"

Maurice snorted softly and Dean grinned. "Alright, Billy, take your truck, Lee, Joseph, you're riding on the back. Danielle's shotgun. Zoe, you get the second truck, with Adam and Isaac on the back and Perry navigating. Maurice and I'll take point and rear, and you watch us, alright? No vagueing out or chatting."

The wide, answering grins he got reminded him suddenly of himself, climbing into the driver's seat of a pickup, Sam clambering up into the back, hair flopping over his forehead as he'd shifted his grip on the shotgun he'd held, his father getting into the Impala … he pushed the memory aside, watching the kids go to their positions, the trucks starting up.

From the other side of the street, Maurice's face was creased in a smile. "Déjà vu," he said with a chuckle, "I remember when your old man –"

Dean shook his head. "Save the memory lane moments for home," he told the older man. "Let's get going."

* * *

"CQ, CQ. Calling CQ. This is DWM208, Delta-Whiskey-Mike-Two-Zero-Eight, calling CQ and standing by."

The radio crackled slightly and Dean adjusted the tuner, watching as the flicker of the digital readout steadied.

"Roger, Delta-Whiskey-Mike-Two-Zero-Eight, this is Kilo-Lima-Lima-Hotel-Zero-Niner, receiving you, loud and clear," Bobby's scratchy voice came from the small speaker and Dean leaned back in the seat, relaxing slightly. "Gotta a message for you, Dean. From Alex. Need to add pharma and med supplies to your shopping list in KC."

"Great, love those extended shopping runs," Dean said resignedly, reaching for the pen and paper in the glove box. "What's the address?"

"Adams Street, Kansas side, follow the train tracks and get off the 35 at West Greystone. There's a bunch of warehouses and freight depots down there."

"What am I looking for?" He wrote down the directions.

"Everything, according to Alex. Here's the list –" Bobby cleared his throat and starting reciting the items and Dean wrote each one down, spelling most of the pharmaceuticals phonetically, noting down the desired quantities for each of them to one side.

"Geez, Bobby, we'll need another truck," he said in exasperation, when the old man stopped.

"Alex gave this top priority, Dean," Bobby said. "We're low on everything and Merrin's just started training up more nurses, so there's a bit of wastage. Get whatever you can and get lots of it."

"Will do," Dean said, tucking the list into his jacket pocket and looking across the river in front of him. "Gonna put us back a few more days."

"I'll let her know."

"How 'bout Vince? How's Omaha looking?"

"Said they had to clean out a big nest of ghouls, set up shop downtown and must have gotten some survivors because there were fresh bones in the lair," Bobby told him.

Dean frowned at that. "Where the hell did they get survivors?"

"Got me," Bobby said. "I thought that most folks would've died in the lead up, but apparently not."

"Hmmm."

"Yeah."

"Alright, anything else?" he asked, stifling a yawn. They were camping in the shell of a factory, on the eastern side of the Missouri River. Everything had gone from the interior but the walls and roof were intact and the vehicles and their small tents were ringed around with circles of protection, of salt and iron and fire.

"Nope, get some shut-eye, I heard that." He heard the smile in the old man's voice and wrinkled his nose at the speaker. "Tell Maurice to stay frosty."

"Yeah, will do. Signing off."

Putting the mike back on the hook, he flicked the radio off and slid out of the car, closing the door quietly behind him as he walked to the cookfire and Maurice's hunched form sitting by it.

"Any news?" The older hunter turned to look at him, his face half-shadowed.

"Got some extras for our list of pickups," Dean said, dropping to the ground and looking at the coffee pot. "Any of that left?"

"It's thick enough to stand a spoon in," Maurice warned him as he lifted it off the fire and poured a half cup. "What kind of extras?"

"Medical supplies."

"Got a location?"

"Half a one," Dean said, his face screwing up as he tasted the thick, bitter coffee, swallowing it down anyway. "Other side of the river, those big warehouses past the train lines."

Maurice nodded. "What about Vince and his team?"

"Omaha's full of ghouls, Bobby said."

"Well, that'll give them some exercise."

"Yeah." Dean's mouth lifted a little. "God, I can't drink this."

Looking down into the cup, he tossed the rest onto the fire, the branches hissing as the liquid hit the hot coals.

Maurice chuckled quietly. "I did warn you. What'd you think of our trainees today?"

Dean put the cup down and shrugged. "They were alright. Didn't seem to be hanging on their nerves too much."

"Yeah," Maurice nodded. "I suspect that being in class with Rufus would be more nerve-wracking than out here with us."

"The town's dead," Dean said, leaning back on his elbows and straightening out his legs. "Just as well for us," he added, frowning as a detail from the conversation with Bobby returned to him and turning to look at Maurice.

"Apparently the ghouls in Omaha weren't feeding from the boneyards."

Maurice finished the thick coffee in his cup and put it down before he responded. "Fresh kills?"

"That's what Vince told Bobby."

"How? We've been looking for survivors for at least eight weeks, haven't seen anyone."

"Sixty four dollar question," Dean agreed tiredly. "Which one of those kids supposed to be watching with you?"

"Joseph," Maurice answered absently, glancing at the tent. "I'll get him in a minute."

"Get him now," Dean said, pulling the edge of the sleeping bag he was lying on around his shoulder. "I'm done."

* * *

_**Hell, August 2012**_

The demon looked around as he entered the fifth level, uneasy in the silence and emptiness. He'd been here before, but passing through, hurrying through the endless corridors and halls and great rooms, not lingering.

Centuries ago, one of the demons of the abyss had told him that this level had been built to mirror the halls of Heaven. The floors were polished black basalt, smoothed and bevelled to resemble paving stones, and tall, graceful columns, fluted or delicately engraved, supported the unseen arches of the ceilings, lost in the shadows above.

It was unsettling, the demon thought, an entire level, empty yet menacingly elegant. He hurried through, hearing only the whisper and low moaning of the winds from the deeper levels as they followed the corridors and skirled around the chambers and cavernous rooms. Unsettling and eerie.

The level had been Astaroth's, and the archdemon had been renowned for his delight in long-lasting and vicious torturing of souls. The juxtaposition of that knowledge and the overweening refinement of the spaces he walked through now was difficult to reconcile. He'd known some, in life, like that, he thought. Think nothing of sliding the shiv in as they declared love and pressed their cold lips against yours.

He stopped as he came to a wide entrance doorway, looking around in wide-eyed astonishment.

"Bloody hell," he breathed. The – what _was_ it? Audience room? Throne chamber? – room was more than a thousand feet long, and at least a third of that in width, the long sides emphasised by towering columns of onyx and jet and obsidian, hollowed and filigreed into fantastically delicate cages of air. At the end of the room, a low dais took up almost the entire width. On the dais, in the centre, stood a seat. A throne, he corrected himself slowly, walking down the length of the room toward it. Gold, chased with silver and jet, the high back carved into wings that stretched up and out, every feather detailed and inlaid with precious stones. In the persistent and unchanging light of this plane, the metals and stones were shaded and coloured in different hues of red, as if the throne had been washed in blood.

Probably has been, he thought, slowing as he neared it. On the other hand, what part of the accursed plane and its prisoners and guards had not?

He climbed the broad, shallow steps and stopped in front of the throne, staring down at it. Fit for a king.

Not a king, he realised slowly. For _the_ King.

Turning around before he could question himself further on the wisdom of what he wanted to do, he sat on the wide seat, his arms resting along the carved and inlaid arms of the throne, fingers curling over the ends.

There was a throb. Through the air. Through the rock. Through everything.

_Power_.

Deep through the caverns and caves, through the tunnels and reaching down to the bottom of the abyss and further, across the lake and into the wastelands. He felt it first as a charge, slipping through what his mind remembered of his body, tingling in his fingertips, stuttering in his chest. Then it grew. And it filled him.

_POWER_. And he understood.

The power of the souls held in here, filled with energy, even after they'd been blackened and twisted and charred beyond recognition. The energy of the millions, or billions, that had passed through, sinking into rock and filling the very air he breathed with their anguish and desolation. It grew and crackled through the throne he sat on, through his own torrefied soul, seeping into every crevice, every fissure and crack, sealing them over, opening his mind and branding new pathways along old ones. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't move, welded to the throne and its connection with the power that rose through the levels. He felt every moment of pain. Every moment of anguish and torment and despair. Every soul. Every single soul.

He sat there for four days as the unchecked power of the souls of Hell poured through and into him and everything he'd ever thought was reshaped and reborn, and all that he'd believed fell away, incinerated in the conflagration of new knowledge.

Born Fergus Roderick McLeod, in the tiny town of Canisbay in northern Scotland, his life had been short on adventure and long on boredom. The smell of the sea and the shore at low tide, the cold damp of the winter storms, burning peat, boiled cabbage and the warm stink of the inn were what filled the little memories he still had of the place. And then the demon had come along. And ten short years later, no richer, no happier, he'd heard the howls in the night.

It'd taken a scant hundred years to burn the humanity out of him. And less to come to love the job he'd been given. Making deals. Tempting and persuading and cajoling the weak into ten years of heaven on earth, and an eternity down amidst the flames. He was good at it. He didn't lie. Much. Not much at all. Was hardly ever needed, in fact. And he didn't welch on the deals he made. Everyone was fully satisfied. And his numbers had gone up and his standing and he'd begun to entertain thoughts about going further.

And now … now he was here. King of Hell. The rightful ruler of the accursed plane. He got up from the throne and felt the power sing through him, in all that remained of his soul. There were things he had to attend to. Important things. Things that would change the world.

* * *

_**Kansas City, Kansas**_

Moving away from the side of the truck, Dean watched the fences behind the massive prefabricated building, where the train tracks ran down alongside the river. He'd been happily surprised when Joseph had taken his list and rewritten it, replacing his phonetically spelled items with the correct labels.

"Worked in a hospital as an orderly for three years before I got my paramedic training," the young man told him with a shrug. "Just gotta a good memory for stuff that's written down."

Dean'd filed that information away carefully. There was a word for that kind of memory, but he didn't think he'd ever known what it was. He could ask Alex when he got back. In the meantime, Joseph had copied out the list and given the copies to Isaac and Zoe and then three of them had been loading boxes and crates onto the hand carts all morning, checking off the items on the list one by one.

It'd taken two days to find another truck, find the replacement tyres and wire for the electrical circuits and something to bind over the steel frames where the seats had been. The Dodge flatbed would handle the full load and as an added bonus there'd been a wholesale liquor warehouse right next door to the tyre place that had survived with most of its premium stock intact. Forty cases of whiskey and bourbon sat tucked on the back, padded and tied down securely. It would keep Rufus happy for awhile at least.

The lightweight chain-link fences that separated the industrial buildings from the tracks looked to be in one piece. Access was easier from the road, but it seemed like these buildings hadn't been touched, even when the city had been fully infected. He'd spent three days trying to get out when the virus had first been running out of control and he couldn't remember which parts had burned to the ground and which had just been filled with the psychopathically enraged victims. He walked around the short edge of the building, watching and listening.

Aside from the light breeze that blew toward him from the river, carrying the fetid stench of drying mudbanks and the acrid odour of hot steel from the railway lines as they slowly heated up in the summer sun, nothing was moving anywhere in his vicinity. He was turning back when the small noise penetrated.

A click. Rock on rock.

Dean pivoted slowly around, the barrel of the shotgun rising unhurriedly. It took a moment to see it, the animal still as stone on the other side of the fence. A dog. Big one.

Some kind of Bernard or Newfie, he thought, but the colouring was wrong for both, this dog was brindle, not the chestnut-and-white patches of the St Bernard breed, nor the blue-black of the Newfoundland. The dog was looking straight at him and he felt the nerves prickle along the back of his neck.

They hadn't seen any dogs in any city or town since Baal had passed over. A few cats, plenty of vermin, but no dogs.

A second dog appeared from below the edge of the bank, moving to stand beside the first, dark eyes protruding slightly from the fine, pointed head, the sunlight gleaming on a short, jet-black coat and lighting the cinnamon points to red. The Doberman's mouth opened and a pink tongue lolled out, saliva dripping from the lower jaw.

He started to back up, moving steadily along the short side of the warehouse, wondering if any of the guns in the trucks were loaded with silver. The dogs watched him, and after a moment, two more appeared, on the other side of the big, heavy-set leader. Collie and a Weinmarer, possibly.

"Maurice," Dean raised his voice a little as he saw the corner of the building in his peripheral vision.

"Yo," the older hunter answered, watching the teams. "What?"

"We got silver with us?"

"Yeah, couple of cases. Why?"

"Skinwalkers."

Dean backed around the corner and turned, running for the trucks. "Load what you're carrying with silver, now!"

They were decoys, he realised, the four by the back fence, as another ten appeared on the road and raced across the open concrete apron toward them. His fingers pulled out the magazine on the assault rifle, slamming in a pre-loaded magazine from the metal case and flicked the rate from full auto to semi, swinging up onto the back of the truck and putting the gun's stock against his shoulder as he started to shoot.

To his left, he could hear Maurice's Kalashnikov, single shot, firing steadily, and the more random firing of one of the trainees, a brief hope they'd taken the time to load up with silver flickering through his thoughts as dog after dog raced toward him.

He'd dropped six of the ten when the rest broke and veered off behind the building, taking themselves out of sight and range.

"Goddammit!" Lowering the rifle barrel, he swung around and looked at Maurice. "Everyone loaded with silver?"

"Joseph, Zoe and Isaac are still in the building," Maurice said, popping the magazine out and checking the shots left and slamming it back in again. "Adam, Danielle and Lee are loaded. Perry and Billy are reloading the mags for the handguns." He gestured brusquely at the cab of the truck and Dean could see the two young men, heads bowed as they feverishly stripped the magazines and reloaded them.

"You want to chase them?"

"No! Hell, no, not if we don't have to," Dean said angrily, jumping down from the flatbed and hurrying to the loading dock, expelling his auto's mag and replacing it with one loaded with silver as he strode across the distance. "How far are we along with that list, Lee?"

The young man looked over at him. "A few more items, and we're done."

Dean nodded. "Alright, Maurice is calling the shots. You stay on the trucks, got it? You do not go after them, you stay here and guard what we've got. Clear?"

"Yessir," Lee said smartly. Adam nodded.

"We clear, Adam?" Dean said sharply to him.

"Yeah, we're clear," Adam said resentfully, looking at him.

"Perry, you and Billy, keep those magazines for the rifles coming. Takes a heart-shot to kill a skinwalker. That means chest shot from the front or behind the shoulder angled forward from the back."

Dean took another four magazines, shoving them into his jacket pocket and vaulted onto the high concrete dock. "Don't let them through, Maurice."

"I won't, go find those kids."

Turning on his heel, Dean disappeared into the shadows of the building, swearing softly under his breath as his eyes adjusted to the dim light and he saw the long aisles of racks, filled with crates and boxes of every size.

"Joseph!" he risked a shout, hearing his voice echo oddly from the high, metal roof and muffled by the porous packing cases on the shelves. "Zoe!"

There was a sound from somewhere, deep within the building's maze of shelving, but he couldn't make it out. He started walking faster.

The gunfire was not muffled. He heard the sharp yap of Zoe's 9mm before it was drowned out by the cannon fire of Joseph's .44, the retorts booming at the end of the building and he was running, the rifle cocked as he tore around the end of the aisle and skidded along the slick concrete floor.

* * *

_**St Elphege Monastery, Tibet**_

Dhargey lay on the stone. He could feel the blood bubbling in his chest, in his throat, and he thought that he would last only a few minutes more, before that bubbling filled everything and became a still lake.

The demons had come in the night. It was unusual. And they had come with a man. More unusual. The man stood to one side of him, dressed in a tailored black suit, the shiny black leather of his shoes visible from the corner of his eye.

"I'm looking for something," the man said. His voice was hard, raspy, the accent educated East London. The lifelong habit of acquiring information, no matter how trivial or of little use was ingrained and he couldn't stop himself from doing it as he lay dying.

"A stone," the man continued, dropping into a crouch beside his head. "With writing on it. You know the one?"

The Tibetan rolled his eyes toward the man.

"Yeah, yeah, dying an' all that," the man said impatiently. "Where is it?"

The touch of the man's fingers along his jaw was excruciating, a million knives stabbing into him, twisting and turning as the fingertips caressed his skin. He waited for the pain to take him, his eyes locked onto the man's.

The hand lifted and the pain ceased before the overload could give him the relief of death.

"Tough little beggar, aren't you?"

The man rose to his feet, shrugging as he turned to the demons waiting behind him. "Tear it apart, every level. It's here somewhere an' we're not leaving until we find it."

On the floor, Dhargey felt the pain vanish completely as his lungs filled. He made the final prayer, for himself, for his colleagues. And blackness came, shutting out his vision as his heart slowed and stopped.

The man looked down at the open eyes of the monk, sighing slightly. Fourteen of them had been here when they'd come in. The fighting had been fierce but brief and all were dead now. He looked around the open-sided hall, drawing his coat more closely around him and lifting the short collar. The wind was freshening, cold and biting from the high, permanently snow-covered ranges to the west.

There were a lot of things here that he could use, he thought, walking from the frigid hall to the slightly warmer interior rooms. But he didn't have time to look through them all. He needed just the one thing.

* * *

_**Kansas City, Kansas**_

Zoe was crouched on the ground, firing at the dogs that snarled and bristled along the building's wall. Under her, Isaac lay on the concrete floor, his shoulder soaked in blood, his gun lying a foot or two from his hand. Joseph stood a few feet from them and a little closer to the rest of the pack, taking shots steadily, upright in the Weaver stance, one hand cupped under the butt of his auto as the barrel swivelled smoothly from side to side.

Dean started shooting as soon as he saw the dogs, the .45 calibre silver bullets finding target after target, chest shots mostly at this angle, the dogs flying back, dead before they hit the floor, the canine bodies transforming back into men and women.

"Back!" he yelled at Zoe as he came up past her. "Both of you, get back, they're skinwalkers."

He saw Joseph moving backward peripherally, heard the scrape of Zoe's boots on the concrete and the soft slur as she dragged Isaac away and focussed his attention on the remaining dogs in front of him.

_Big pack_. The thought hit him as the last one, a monstrous Anatolian mastiff dropped, the fur and frame melting and dissolving into the figure of a tall, broad-chested man.

"What –? What the fuck are they?" Joseph said from behind him.

He turned around and saw Zoe bending over Isaac, her gun tucked back in its holster as she lifted the edge of the boy's jacket to look at the torn up flesh and fabric beneath.

"Skinwalkers," Dean told Joseph, looking at his shocked face. "Rufus didn't tell you about them?"

He saw the guilty look flash between Joseph and Zoe and sighed inwardly. The hunter had. Too much info hitting them too fast.

"They're kind of like werewolves," he said quietly, walking to Isaac and crouching beside him, looking expressionlessly at the deep bite in his shoulder. "Need silver to the heart to kill 'em."

In the distance, at the other end of the building he could hear the rat-tat of the automatic weapons. _Big, big pack_. He gestured to Zoe to get up, and closed his hand around Isaac's uninjured arm, straightening up and pulling the young man to his feet.

"Come on," he said brusquely, gesturing ahead with the barrel of the Colt automatic. "How much more did we need?"

"Not much," Zoe said, glancing around as they turned down the aisle. "We found the broad-spectrum antibiotics down there, we were loading them when the dogs came."

"What about the ones outsi–?" Joseph started to ask when the gunshot rang out, making both of them jump.

Dean let Isaac drop to the floor, his face stony. He looked at the slack, shocked faces of the young woman and man standing in front of him, their mouths open as they stared down at their dead friend.

"Skinwalkers turn with a bite," he said shortly. "Get going, get those boxes loaded. We'll burn the bodies after we've got everything."

"You killed him?" Zoe didn't move, her gaze lifting slowly to Dean.

"He was bitten," Dean repeated, as patiently as he could, striding toward her and pushing her around, down the aisle. "There's no coming back from it. He would've turned, become one of them."

"But –"

"Goddammit, get moving," Dean snapped. "There is no 'but'. This is it, this is the job."

Following them down to the abandoned hand-cart, he watched them finish loading it, emotion and everything else locked down and away.

Maurice looked up as they came onto the loading dock, and nodded to Billy and Adam to start unloading. Danielle, Perry and Lee picked up their rifles and moved to the other trucks, climbing onto the flatbeds next to the loads and watching the open concrete lot.

"Big pack," Maurice commented lightly to Dean, noting that he'd come back with only two of the three trainees.

"Yeah."

"Isaac bitten?"

"Yeah."

Adam looked up at them, a frown drawing his brows together as he belatedly noticed that only Joseph and Zoe were there.

"What happened to Isaac?"

"Get that stuff loaded," Dean said, reloading the automatic.

"Where's Isaac?" Adam said again, not moving as he stood on the flat tray of the truck staring at his half-brother.

"Isaac didn't make it," Joseph told him, pushing a box at him.

For a moment, Dean thought that Adam was going to ignore it, was going to argue. He felt an answering anger rising as he stared back at the younger man, unaware that his eyes had darkened, or that his expression had flattened out to a frigidly threatening scowl. Adam took the box and turned, lips tightly pressed together as he stacked it tightly against the others.

"You want to burn the bodies?" Maurice asked softly.

Dean looked at him, sucking in a deep breath. He nodded. "As soon as the loads are done and cinched down, yeah."

"Maurice, take the last truck. Adam can ride with you," Dean said tiredly as they threw the last body onto the burning pyre. "Billy, you drive truck two, with Lee and Zoe. Joseph, you're on truck one with Danielle and Perry."

The trainees got into the vehicles and started them, Maurice glancing at Dean as he walked back to the truck.

"We stopping on the way?"

Dean shook his head, heading for the Impala. "No, straight home."

He got into the black car and started the engine, watching the trucks pull out after him as he turned for the back roads west to lead them out of the city. In the rearview mirror, he could see the smoke rising lazily into the still air from the pyre. Kid had been twenty, if that.

He reached for the stereo, his fingertips light on the case of the tape and stopped, letting his hand drop. He didn't want to listen to anything. Didn't want to think about anything. The trip had been too long already and he wanted to be back in the fortified town. They'd gotten everything they'd needed. And had left a kid behind. A dead kid.

* * *

Maurice glanced sideways at the young man sitting rigidly beside him. "Got something to get off your chest, Adam?"

"He killed Isaac," Adam said tightly, staring through the windshield.

"Isaac got bitten," Maurice said mildly. "There's no cure for a bite from a skinwalker. Not for a werewolf bite either."

"Zoe told me he just gunned him down in cold blood."

"Isaac would've turned into a monster – you think that'd be a preferable option?"

Adam turned his head slowly to look at the older hunter. "And if it'd been me who'd gotten bit? Or you?"

"Same deal, Adam," Maurice said patiently. "No exemptions in this life. Didn't Rufus tell you that?"

Adam looked back out the windshield, his face tight. Isaac had been a friend. Had started to become a friend. He couldn't believe he was dead. Couldn't believe that his older brother – his half-brother – had killed him. Without doubt or hesitation, Zoe'd said. Just bam! An execution.

"Son, we passed out of the old world a while back now," Maurice said, glancing across at him. "This world, this is how it's always been for hunters – like me, like your brothers – monsters and demons and ghosts and all the things that go bite in the dark. It's why your dad tried to keep you out of it."

"Didn't do much of a job, did he?"

"He did the best he could," Maurice countered. "I worked with your dad, a few times before he passed, and he –"

"Maurice," Adam interrupted him, shaking his head. "I don't want any family anecdotes right now, okay? I can't deal with my family history right now."

Maurice looked at the rigid profile of the young man beside him. "Sure."

He drew in a deep breath, looking back at the road and the taillights of the truck ahead of him. John's life had been a mess but it hadn't been of his choosing. He'd never seen a man so driven, so flogged and torn apart by what had happened to him, what had still been happening to him, the occasions they'd teamed up. He remembered waking in the night, in the depths of the Minnesota woods, waking abruptly to the noises made by the man sleeping on the other side of the fire. He hadn't asked John about those nightmares, but he'd never forgotten them either.

* * *

_**St Elphege Monastery, Tibet**_

He was in the top level of the library, flipping through an account of the life and deeds of an infamous English magician when the demon entered, eyes wide and black.

"Yes?"

"We've found something," the demon said, half-turning and gesturing.

"Something? Can you be more specific?"

"Something we can't touch, something that hurts to be near."

"Ah," he said, tucking the book under his arm and getting up. "That sounds more like it."

The demon looked questioningly at the book he carried and he glanced down, smiling at it. "Just a little bed-time reading," he said with a shrug. "Lead on."

He followed it down the uneven hall, and through a narrow, low doorway set into the rock wall. Stairs, roughly hewn and worn deeply in the centres, led down into the mountain.

The magician hadn't been much in life. Delusional, he thought, mostly. But his heart had been in the right place. He wondered that no one had gone and offered him a deal, to make those desires and ambitions real, to bring real power to the man's life. But perhaps someone had and had been rejected. The name had a nice ring to it, though.

Winding and twisting, always down, he had to stoop a little where the ceiling of the tunnel hadn't been cleared quite enough for the height of the Manhattan publisher he was wearing. Good taste in clothes, though, he thought irrelevantly. And a not-unappealing meatsuit. Francis Taggert, Junior. He grimaced at the name. No, he liked the ring of the other better. _Aleister Crowley_. It would have a certain cachet in some circles.

The stairs opened into a long, low cavern, dry and musty and filled with baskets and boxes, chests and jars and containers of every sort, most of them ripped open and torn apart now, spilling their contents, rare or precious or both, over the stone floor. Three demons stood to one side of a roughly constructed set of shelves, curling and writhing in place.

On the shelf, there was a featureless hunk of clay. Crowley reached out a finger and felt the frisson of energy reach through the clay and into his hand. Had he been without a vessel, he thought that the feel of that hunk of rock might have hurt him, repulsed him. It was the soul, imprisoned in its body, jammed up beneath him that allowed him to touch it.

The clay wasn't more than a few hundred years old, he realised belatedly as the information about it filtered into his mind through his touch. Re-wrapped? Or a decoy?

He sighed. There was only one way to find out. He picked it up from the shelf and looked around, wondering if the geological structure of the mountain was entirely stable. It was hard to say, and his mother had told him, over and over again in the small house that had smelled predominantly of cooked potatoes and the peat fire, it was better to be safe than sorry. He turned and walked back to the stairs, climbing them quickly, the stone heavy in his hand.

"Get rid of that," he told the demons, gesturing to the body lying on the stone paving of the open hall.

On every side the mountain ranges and the sky filled the open archways, an endless panorama of peak after peak. The thin, chill wind moaned slightly as it came down the snow-covered mountains and twisted through the hall. In the centre a circular hearth flickered with the dying remains of a fire, the coals glowing and fading as the wind brushed by them.

Crowley looked at the hunk of clay in his hands. Fortune and glory, he thought remotely and let it go.

It dropped to the floor and smashed, the clay flying off in pieces, and the demon crouched beside it. Inside the clay was a stone, smoothed and worn and engraved with symbols that were not – quite – Enochian. He laughed uneasily to himself at that fleeting knowledge. The throne had imparted more than just the power of the souls, he realised shakily. There was information in his mind that had not existed there before. Information of Hell. And of Heaven. And of the beings that dwelled there.

Flicking the loose fragments of clay aside, he felt a tingling in his fingers as they brushed the oily surface of the stone. Whatever it was, this tablet, it was powerful in ways he couldn't even imagine – and he could _imagine_ quite a bit.

* * *

_**Hayu Marca, Peru**_

The small herd of vicuña, grazing the flat puna valley leading down to the enormous lake, lifted their heads uncertainly. The watching female shrilled her cry of alarm, her head lifting as the ripple passed through the rock and moraine ground beneath her feet, shivering the long grasses. She turned sharply when she saw the herd had listened, her fine, silky fleece fluttering along her sides as she bounded up the rocky slope.

From the grassland, the bones of the mountains protruded, dark red and inclined slabs. One had been carved, millennia ago, into the form of a door. A vast door for the gods, it had been believed, with no access to anything beyond but the charge of energy perceptible to any who'd laid their hands on the ancient rock.

The edges of the doorway split, and light seeped out, a flat, silvery light, growing as the cracks around the door widened. The rock groaned as the weight ground over the gravel and soils at its base and a deep shudder passed through the bones of the land, lifting the waters of the enormous lake for a second and dropping them.

The light spilled out now along the widening fissures, brightening argentine against the red stone, air rushing through the cracks, carrying the scent of the dead, of blood and fear and despair.

Two women emerged from the split in the rock face. One was extremely fair, milk-white skin and pale eyes, long, white hair ghosting around her narrow face in the wind that reached out from behind her into the world. The other was dark. Deeply tanned skin, long, black hair, thick and heavy, dark eyes that narrowed in a square, broad face, looking around as she stepped out onto the grass.

As they passed through it, the rock face returned to what it had been, sealed and solid, a carving, not a doorway.

The pale woman looked at her sister. "The earth calls."

"It is time," the dark woman agreed.

They turned away from each other, striding out over the altiplano, the length of the strides increasing until in moments, they'd vanished from sight.

Over the hill, the herd of vicuña looked up again, the male shivering with overwhelming arousal. He called to the females, singing his song to them and they cushed for him, filled with the same desire, instinct driving them. He walked to the closest, and wound his neck gently around hers, crooning softly into her ear.

* * *

_**Lebanon, Kansas**_

There were no windows in the order's stronghold. That was something she missed, Ellen thought, staring at the book-lined walls of the office. To be able to open a window, look out over fields and woods, feel the soft summer breezes on her skin at night. She sighed and dragged her attention back to the two men sitting on either side of the long desk.

"There were twenty-nine of them," Dean was saying to Bobby. "Together, and they had a strategy."

Bobby frowned, shaking his head. "Skinwalkers don't pack up much bigger than nine or ten –"

"That's what Dad's journal says as well," Dean cut him off impatiently. "And Jim's. Doesn't change the fact that they were there – decoys, two fronts of attack … they knew what they were doing."

Ellen looked at him, seeing the shadows under his eyes, the lines drawn on his face that weren't there when he'd left for the city. Having to kill Isaac had been a blow that he wasn't coming back from, she thought apprehensively. There was a lot of weight on him, had been for three years now. Longer, she realised sourly. Since she'd met him he'd been carrying a load that was slowly but surely grinding him down.

"An' what do you want to do about it?" Bobby sighed, leaning back in his chair.

"Vince said that the ghouls were getting fresh kills," Dean said slowly, rubbing his hand over his eyes. He was bone-tired and he wanted to get some sleep, but the urgency he could feel thrumming along his nerves wasn't going to allow that. "And the pack – they had to have found people to turn somewhere to get that big."

"You think there's a big group of survivors somewhere?" Ellen frowned at him, her mind ticking through the possibilities of where such a group could be. "Where?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "There were all the free civilians from the cities – we didn't see them in Atlanta, everyone we pulled out of there was branded."

He dragged in a deep breath and looked at them. "We're just about done with the supply runs. We need to do some looking around for them."

Bobby nodded. "Yeah, no argument there. Where do you want to start?"

"Wichita, maybe," Dean said. "Then St Louis."

"You think they'd be in the cities?"

"I don't know, Bobby," he said tiredly. "Those people were free 'cause they were the smart ones, weren't they? Could do the technical jobs? Maybe they figured out a few places where there are still canned goods? Maybe they're in farm country … I don't know."

Ellen looked at him. "No matter what else they can do, they can't live without food, or shelter. I'll talk to Jackson tomorrow, see if he knows of any place that might fit." She got up from her chair and walked to the desk. "Have you eaten? I can get you something?"

He shook his head. "No, I want to get back to town."

He hadn't even stopped there, just driven straight out here. Hadn't even seen Alex or let her know he was still in one piece. The thought brought ambivalent feelings. He had responsibilities, to the people here, to the future … and the longing he could barely admit to was sublimated beneath those responsibilities, pushed aside as a personal indulgence he thought he didn't have the same right to feel.

"Go and get something to eat, Dean, and some sleep. You're no good to anyone burned out." Bobby got to his feet. "We'll talk to the others in the morning, figure out some kind of roster. Franklin's moved down to Lebanon, says we need soldiers for the holds. I think he's right. The hunters need to be looking for people, cleaning out whatever comes into our area."

He acknowledged that with a slight tilt of his head, getting up. "Anything more on the tablets?"

"There're myths," Ellen said, with a sniff. "But nothing concrete, not even about the Watchers."

A thought tickled the back of Dean's mind, but he was too tired to make it come clear. He shrugged it off and turned for the door. "See you in the morning."

Looking at his watch as he got into the Impala, his face screwed up when he registered the time. Long past midnight. He hesitated with his fingers on the key, wondering if he should just stay here, take Ellen up on her offer of food and find a sofa in one of the offices for the night.

He turned the key and the engine rumbled into life. She would be asleep, he thought, and he didn't have the right to just come and go, disrupting her life, even when his was falling apart. But he put the car into gear anyway, foot pressing on the accelerator as he turned the wheel and drove out through the illusions and back to the asphalt road leading into town.

* * *

The four room apartment was located in the second keep that Liev had built in the fortress he'd made of the town, facing west and south. A kitchen and bathroom, large living area and bedroom with a short hall that gave access to all comprised its design. Finding furniture had been difficult and the mismatched pieces that filled the rooms had been scrounged from houses that had been protected, from the basements and store-rooms of the surviving camps in Michigan, dragged out with them, or from the rare stores that had had a large amount of stock on site, wrapped and packed away and left by the plagues.

Dean looked around automatically as he walked through the door and closed it behind him, feeling an involuntary easing of his tension as he took in the comfortable room, the smell of food cooking.

Alex walked out of the kitchen and straight to him. He saw immediately that she knew what had happened. Saw too that she knew what he felt. She slipped her arms around him and, for a moment, he leaned against her, letting that simplest of contacts take some of the weight, a welcomed respite from the pain.

The abrupt sense of shame that rose in him, shame and a twisting sensation of guilt, was too complex for him to understand completely even though it was as familiar to him as the sound of the black car's engine. He pulled away, looking down at her.

"I guess you heard what happened," he said, mouth twisting.

"I heard you had a bad day," she said gently, a slight crease marring her forehead as she looked up at him.

"Yeah, that's one way to put it." He stepped back. "I thought you'd be asleep."

"No, I had some stuff I had to finish up," Alex said, gesturing in the direction of the desk as she watched him. "Are you hungry? There's venison stew?"

"That'd be good."

He watched her turn and walk away to the kitchen and he sat down, pushing aside his recognition of the question that had been in her face, the feelings that were churning just below the surface. It was just tiredness, he told himself. A long, fucking horrible day and tiredness.

Alex sat at the table, watching him eat. He wasn't much for words. Wasn't used to articulating the way he thought or felt. She knew that about him, had known it for a long time. The times when he'd told her the things about himself, those had been aberrations, not the norm, not intended but spilling out because he hadn't been able to deal with them on his own, on the inside, any longer.

"And you think that there're people still out there, in one of the cities?" she asked.

"Can't think of any other explanation," he said, mopping up the sauce in his bowl with a hunk of the freshly baked bread she'd put out with it. "That's not the only problem," he added, pushing the clean bowl aside and picking up his beer. "Normally, ghouls or skinwalkers, they stay in packs but not very big ones – they don't tolerate their own kind all that well."

"They turn on each other?"

He nodded. "But Vince said there were fifty ghouls in Omaha, covering a twenty block radius. And we saw twenty nine in the skinwalker pack in Kansas City."

"One increase might have been situational, an anomaly, but both is pushing the odds a bit," she agreed, getting up and taking the dishes to the sink. "What could cause something like that?"

Dean leaned back in the chair and shook his head. "I don't know. Jerome'll get his people to look for it, but … it's weird too," he hesitated, hearing the words and grimacing. "Weirder, I mean, than everything else."

Alex looked at him thoughtfully. "Because the population is smaller now, smaller than it's been for more than two thousand years?"

"Yeah," he said, a little surprised she'd picked that up so quickly. "Why would any predator population increase so much when there won't be enough food for them?"

* * *

The bedroom was lit by a single candle, the flame bright and steady and reflecting the sheen of sweat that covered their skin as they clung to each other, their breathing harsh in the still room, waiting as the aftershocks and tremors bled out of them slowly.

His cheek resting against the slope of her breast, eyes closed, Dean felt his heartrate steady, heard hers decreasing as well. Images still played out against the blackness of his closed lids, each one sending a crackling reaction along sensitised nerves, a thick shiver of warm pleasure that left his body heavy and loose, finally free of the tension and pain of the last few days. He felt her hand slip through his hair, stroking the back of his neck, and he exhaled deeply, letting the poisons go, shedding them gladly.

Lifting his head, he found her lips, the kiss tentative at first, intensifying as she returned it, wordlessly trying to tell her what he couldn't say out loud, couldn't admit to, even in this most private intimacy.

It was a weakness, to want her so much, to need her so much. He couldn't afford any weaknesses, not in this life. He couldn't afford to admit that somewhere, in the depths of where he lived, where he breathed, where it was just him and nobody else, he wanted someone to be there. To care about him. To love him. Someone he could let in. Someone he could love.


	2. Chapter 2 Blood and Breath

**Chapter 2 Blood and Breath**

* * *

_**September 2012, Lebanon, Kansas**_

The little town, now a fortress, wasn't surrounded by the flat, open plains that were the usual perception of Kansas. The land rolled gently, low hills and river courses dividing the farms and holdings from each other. The fields of grain, however, hip-high and golden, bending and bowing with every tremble of wind, did resemble the inland seas of the prairie. The oats had finished in August and the silos and sacks were safely filled and stored with that grain. The big barns held the bales of hay and straw that would go to feeding their stock over the winter months. Wheat hadn't been an option this year, but they would plant winter wheat and rye after the harvest for next season. Today and for the next few days it would be corn, then barley.

Jackson looked suspiciously at the bright sky, faded blue eyes narrowed in the early morning light. The run of good weather had held for an unseasonably long time, and it raised the hairs on the back of his neck to trust that it would continue. Farming wasn't ever easy, but it was the unpredictability of the weather that really broke the spirit. When Mother Nature decided to be capricious, an entire year's work could be ruined with too little rain at the right time, or too much.

The dew would have dried off the corn in another hour, he thought, feeling the heat in the sunshine even this early. He had twenty five combines, and drivers for all of them; sixty grain trucks and a dozen tractors pulling chaser bins, enough to let the combines run without stopping, and all of them waiting patiently along the edges of the first fields. And empty silos and barns, waiting to be filled.

A burst of laughter, from the shade of the young oaks that had regrown between the fields and the farmyard, drew his attention. Trestle tables had been set up since before first light, lines of them beneath the still-full, spreading canopies, and food was set out, loaves of bread and baskets of rolls, cakes and pies, casseroles and roasted meat as cold cuts, salads and bowls of sliced, fresh vegetables from the truck gardens, condiments and pickles and conserves from the early and mid-season fruit and vegetables. Everyone who wasn't old enough or strong enough or skilled enough to help in the fields was working the tables and the trestles were groaning under the weight of dishes pre-cooked the previous evening and brought along to feed the men and women working the fields. The sight constricted his chest, just a little. It'd been a long time since he'd seen this kind of community activity on a farm. A long, long time. It'd been common enough when he'd been a small boy, but not in the years since.

He glanced around as Dean walked across the farmyard, followed by his tall, younger brother and Rufus.

"'Bout an hour," Jackson said, forestalling the question he knew was coming. "Gotta wait for the sun to dry off the dew, then we can go. Got time to grab some breakfast 'fore you get started."

Dean nodded. The drivers were almost all hunters, along with the few experienced farmers and contractors that had come out here from Michigan, most hunters having had experience driving just about anything. He'd spent a couple of hours the previous day running the combine, with Riley sitting in the narrow cab next to him. The innards of the complicated machines were fortunately being left to the farmers to handle.

"This going to be enough? For everyone here?"

Jackson gave him a dry grin. "We got a little under six thousand acres planted this year," he told Dean. "Oats, corn, barley. We'll see about twenty-five hundred tons per day, give or take breakdowns and the trucks running up fast enough to keep us on the go. Oats are in. Barley after the corn, and then planting again for the wheat and rye. Gives us variety, seed and stock feed." He cast a jaundiced eye at the sky again, careful not to mention the weather. "We'll do okay."

* * *

The glare of the bright sunshine from the fields, worse when they turned where they'd been. The roar of the engines. The thick dust and chaff that flew everywhere, infiltrating clothing and the tractor cabins and truck cabs whose rubber seals had been devoured and not replaced, sticking to the skin and hair as the day grew hotter and everyone working in the fields sweated and burned and coughed. The dry smell of the grain and the thick fumes of the diesel motors. Keeping in straight lines and making wide turns, the truck drivers watching the mirrors and harvesters constantly as the grain was pulled by the augers and flowed down into the hoppers behind them. Not a cloud in sight and the wide, wide sky bleaching slowly out to white as the day progressed. The blessed cool of the shade under the trees and the bubbles of chilled beer washing out lips and tongues and mouths and throats and the thick sandwiches that were handed out to everyone as they came in and rested and got up and went back out.

Alex passed Dean a damp towel, smiling as he wiped the fine dust from his eyes and looked blearily around, his vision slow to adjust to the dimness under the trees after the painful glare of the stripped fields. His habitual plaid shirt had been abandoned in the cab of the harvester and the t-shirt he was wearing, that had started out a pale grey when he'd put it on in the morning, had darkened to charcoal, wet with sweat and dust and oil.

"How do you like farming?" she asked, taking the towel as she handed him a bottle of beer, condensation running down the cold glass when he tipped it up and swallowed half in a couple of gulps.

"I have a new respect for the man on the land," he told her sourly, finishing the beer and taking the roll she passed him. "S'alright for you wimmenfolk, sittin' around in the shade –"

"Alex, time's up, truck twelve," Ryan called out from across the yard. "Riley's your loader."

"I'll take that apology when I get back," she said to Dean, smiling as she pulled the bandana around her neck back up over her nose and walked away toward the line of waiting trucks and hoppers.

"I'll make it a slow one," he yelled after her, seeing her hand rise briefly in acknowledgement. Taking a bite of the sandwich, he watched her climb into the truck cab and start the engine, the vehicle moving out of line and following the dusty track to the fields to the south.

"Where's the beer?" Sam said behind him, and he turned, gesturing to the barrel beside the table.

"Drink fast," Ellen told them, bringing another tray of thick sandwiches and packed rolls and setting it down in front of them. "You've got fifteen minutes off and then you're back into it."

"Slave labour," Dean remarked around his mouthful, reaching out to take another roll from the platter.

"All feeding you through the winter," she retorted, passing two more beers from the barrel and loading a tray with more for the rest of the table. "Haven't seen Bobby have this much fun since that turkey shoot in '08," she added, jerking her head toward the fields.

"I remember that," Sam said, swallowing quickly. "Wasn't that the time that you and Jo nearly set the roadhouse kitchen on fi–"

"No time for reminiscing, boys, got work to do," Ellen cut him off smoothly and headed down the table.

Sam exchanged a glance with his brother, one brow lifted. Looking at him, Dean was happy to see his brother's despair washed away, even if temporarily. He looked younger, he thought. Younger and lighter in spirit than he'd seen him for a long time.

Sam was thinking the same thing, glad to see laughter in his older brother's eyes instead of worry. For all that happened, for all that they'd fought for and won and lost, this life wasn't so bad, he thought, taking another bite of the doorstop sandwich in his hands and washing it down with a long pull of beer.

* * *

They finished the day's run a little after sunset, and check over the machines in the floodlit yard, looking for worn belts, leaking oil, dry bearings and replacing everything that looked even remotely suspect as the trucks lined up beside the silos and unloaded the grain.

Dean put down the grease gun, and twisted the nipple over the bearings, straightening up with a long exhale.

"Hot bath," Riley suggested, looking over the combine carefully.

"Not sure I have the energy," Dean retorted, feeling his body creaking as he stretched.

The farmer turned to him. "Jackson said you boys would be heading out, looking for other people?"

Dean nodded. "Soon as we're finished here."

"You stick around a few more days, help with the planting?" Riley's gaze cut to one side. "Not many keep a nice, straight line."

Dean considered it. "If nothing else comes up, yeah. Sure."

"Thanks." The older man turned away, lanky frame throwing an elongated shadow over the dirt yard as he passed under the floodlights. Dean watched him go, a faint smile lifting one side of his mouth. Those few words were, for the taciturn farmer, the highest of praise, and an offer of friendship, and he recognised it as such.

He walked out of the yard, heading for the lane, pulling the long-sleeved flannelette shirt back on as the evening began to cool. They'd be back here tomorrow, first thing, to finish the last thousand acres. And at least a couple of days next week to bring in the barley, he thought, only a little wearily. As jobs went, it was satisfying at least. He could see the results straight away, the trucks filled with their loads of gold and the fields bare where they'd been. He liked the simplicity of it, liked the easy camaraderie of everyone working together with one goal.

"Alex," he called out, seeing her by the house talking to Jackson, loaded down with the now-empty baskets and dishes she'd brought in the morning. She turned and saw him, lengthening her stride across the lane to meet him.

"How're you feeling?"

He shook his head, opening the passenger door for her. "Don't ask."

"Hot bath," she told him as he got into the driver's seat. He smiled a little.

"Yeah, that's what Riley told me," he said. "You gonna help?"

"Ask me nicely, and I'll consider it."

* * *

Father Emilio walked up to the table, the brown robe over one arm, a once-white t-shirt and faded drill trousers coated in dust and darkened with sweat showing a tall, lean frame, muscles clearly delineated under the clinging cloth. He dropped the robe over the back of a chair and accepted the glass of water Alex held out gratefully.

Behind him, Sam and Adam, a few of the hunter trainees and a dozen equally dusty and sweat-soaked civilians staggered in under the shade of the trees and dropped into the simple wooden chairs, taking the big glasses of cool water as they were poured out and drinking fast.

The priest looked at Alex, sitting on the opposite side of the table, the ledgers for each hold and the order spread out around her.

"An' how did you get this job, Alex, cool and relaxed under the trees?" he asked her, sitting down as he set the empty glass down and leaning across the table.

"Wanna trade?" she asked him, pushing the books toward him. "I'll take the fields any day of the week."

He laughed. "No, no, I have nothing left for the calculations of bushels and tons per acre per day!"

"Have Jackson or Riley asked you to help with the planting yet, Father?" She reached for the jug of water and refilled his glass.

"Thank you. Yes, both of them," he said dryly, picking it up.

"You drive a mean straight line," Sam said, holding out his glass for Alex as he took the chair next to the priest. She filled it and watched him thoughtfully. Under the fine white dust and chaff, his skin was red and peeling, the flash of his smile bright against it. He looked better, she thought, a lot better. More relaxed, more … himself, maybe, although she didn't really know what he'd been like before Atlanta. Dean had commented on the change last night, his relief palpable as he'd relaxed in the hot bath she'd run for him. She watched Father Emilio grin at him, the uncomplicated and mutual liking between the two men obvious.

"Ah … so if I add a few wobbles," he said, waggling his hand from side to side in demonstration. "I'll be – what is the phrase? Off the hook?"

"Too late," Sam said, shaking his head in mock sympathy. "They've already seen your quality."

"Story of my life," Father Emilio said sadly. He looked at Alex, brow lifted curiously. "And Dean, he is planting as well?"

"So long as Rufus and Maurice don't find anything in the couple of weeks," she said, looking up as Billy brought her another dozen slips of paper from the silos. Taking them from him, she pulled the ledgers close to her again and started writing.

"If we get all the barley in by the end of the week, you'll be starting next week," she added, her gaze going to the horizon. The last two days there'd been a thin line of grey along the south-western line of low hills. Jackson had been muttering about it non-stop.

"You think the weather will break before tomorrow?" The priest turned around to follow her gaze.

"Riley does," Sam said, finishing his water and setting the glass down. "Thinks we'll get a storm tonight, maybe. Or tomorrow at the latest."

The humidity had been building slowly since the lunch break, the ground crumbling and dry.

"What does that mean, in terms of the food we're storing?" Father Emilio looked from Sam to Alex quizzically.

Alex tapped the ledgers with the end of her pen. "More stock feed, that's all. We've got enough to feed our population, and enough for seed for next year's planting now. If it rains tonight, the rest can be baled for hay, once it's dry again, or packed as silage."

"And the planting?"

"You'll be ploughing in the remains of the crops and ready to seed on time," Alex told him with a faint smile as she finished the entries. She tucked the slips into the back of each hold's ledger and closed them.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Lebanon**_

Bobby groaned as Ellen's hands worked firmly over his back. "What happened to TLC?"

"You want pampering or you want to be able to get up in the morning?" she asked tartly, taking another handful of the paste Oliver had made up for her and rubbing it firmly into the muscles.

"You talk to Dean today?" he asked, changing the subject since he didn't want yet another conversation to end with the woman being right.

"Didn't even see him today," she said. "Why?"

"Rufus didn't check in on sked tonight."

"That's not too unusual, is it?"

"Sometimes not, sometimes it is," Bobby prevaricated, uncertain of how worried he wanted her to be – or how much he wanted her to see of his worry. "The check in, while they're hunting, was something we'd agreed on."

"Might be in a black spot?" she suggested, working back up his spine and over his shoulders.

"Yeah, might be," Bobby sighed. He wasn't sure if he should be raising an alarm about it or not. Anson was on a twelve-hour shift tonight, he could check with him if the hunter had tried a bit later.

The uncharacteristic behaviour of the skinwalkers in Kansas City and the ghouls in Omaha was worrying him more than he was ready to admit to, just yet. Dean had voiced the obvious question already – they were predators, why were they increasing their numbers when their prey had been drastically reduced? None of it made for good bed-time thoughts.

"Nightcap?" Ellen poured two glasses of whiskey and handed him one as he sat up. "Where was Rufus yesterday?"

"Amarillo."

She looked at him, brows shooting up. "Texas?"

"Know of any others?" he said, giving her a one-sided smile. "He wanted to check out the possibilities between here and Austin."

"But he hadn't found anything?"

Bobby shook his head. "No, Austin was empty, stripped clean of everything, he said. And Amarillo looked to be the same, at least it did yesterday."

"And everyone was okay then?" she pressed him, brow creased as she tried to imagine what could have happened between then and now. Amarillo wasn't a black spot. Far from it.

"Yeah, he said they'd do a sweep, and then head north." He shrugged, tossing the contents of his glass back.

"You want to see Dean now?"

"No, I'll see him tomorrow," Bobby said, putting his glass down and looking at her. "Nothin' we can do tonight."

"I'll argue that," she said, slipping her arm around him.

"Nothin' about Rufus," he corrected himself, shunting the worries and concerns he had aside. The hunter was more than capable and he had Mel with him, wasn't like he was out there on his ownsome with just the trainees.

* * *

_**Ghost Valley Farm, Lebanon**_

The cloud came racing north as the combines rumbled onto the last field, black and grey and white, covering the sky and forcing the drivers to turn on the headlights, the light vanished so quickly. Dean peered out through the first spatters of drops against the flat windshield, seeing the grain field lashing as the wind grew stronger, blinking as a bolt of lightning struck a few miles off, lighting the fields in front of him to a stark chiaroscuro. Glancing to his right, he saw Bobby roll down the window of the truck, leaning out, his words lost in the rising howl of the wind and the enormous hiss of the undulating crop, the basso profundo of the thunder's voice and the sizzling, deafening cracks of lightning bolts that were striking all around them.

Bobby drew his hand across his throat as he pointed back toward the house, and Dean nodded, understanding that charade anyway. Slowing the harvester down to idle, he disengaged the thresher and waved Bobby away, unlocking the auger and climbing out to push it back into position.

In the time it took for him to push it back and turn around, the heavens opened and the rain bucketed down, the force bouncing the drops back up from the field where the grain had been cut and sweeping them off the long grasses where it hadn't, spuming out ahead of the wind like the spindrift of a storm at sea. Dean ducked his head and felt his way back to the cab, yanking on the door and diving in and dragging the door shut behind him. He had zero visibility to the front, the combine's wipers whipping back and forth across the glass and having no impact whatsoever on the water that sheeted down, turning everything in his headlights to a smeary and distorted mix of colours without definition. He flicked on the overhead lights, the four powerful spot lamps that shone for thirty yards to the front and sides of the harvester, and pushed the machine into forward, trundling over the field at idling speed, uncertain of his direction. He couldn't see any other lights, not from the other machines, not from the house, and he twisted around in the cab, looking behind him as he tried to remember which way he'd been going when the storm had hit. South, he thought, away from the buildings. Turning the combine slowly, he was rewarded a minute later by a very dim glow in the right hand corner of the windshield and he let out his breath as he headed for it.

The yard was a quagmire by the time he reached it, and he could just see the figure in the yellow slicker ahead, tall but completely hidden by the rain gear, waving its arms to direct him along the grassed verge rather than risk the machine in the thick mud. He made the turn, just, and felt the huge tyres grip and lurch forward, seeing the big three-sided shed ahead of him, with the rest of the harvesters already parked inside.

There was a moment he thought he wasn't going to make it across the slippery morass of churned up dirt and gravel that divided the yard from the shed, but in first, the weight and torque managed to give the tyres just enough help to slide and stagger across, and he felt the change when the fronts rose up on the concrete floor of the shed, running a hand over his face as he nosed it up to the back wall and shut it all down.

_Still have to figure out how to get back to the car_, he thought, climbing down from the cab and walking to the edge of the concrete floor. The rain was showing no signs of letting up at all, not even easing, and the huge bolts of lightning were still striking to every quarter, filling the air with the burned-battery stench of ozone and crackling energy.

He snapped around as he caught the movement in the corner of his eye, relaxing his grip on the Colt tucked into his belt behind his hip as he recognised Jackson, flapping in head-to-foot oilskins and carrying more bundled up in his arms.

The older man leaned close, half-shouting to be heard over the din of the rain on the metal roof above them.

"Get these on, they won't help much but you can pretend they do!"

He grinned slightly, pulling the long coat free of the bundle and dragging it on. He was already saturated to the skin, and a bit more water wasn't going to hurt him, but the slickers were an eye-searing safety yellow and he wouldn't get run over by a vehicle unable to see anything in front of it in the pouring rain while he was wearing it. Might blind the driver, he considered, shaking his head at the long pants Jackson held out.

They crossed the mud pond together, hunched over with the fierce drops drumming on the water-proof material almost as loudly as it had on the metal roof and reaching the broad, stone-flagged porch of the house with forty or fifty pounds of the yard adhering to their boots.

"You seen Alex?" he asked, scraping off the thick, viscous mud on the boot scraper by the door.

"She left an hour ago, took the ledgers back," Jackson said, nodding.

"Who'd she go with?"

"Bobby and Ellen, I think."

Dean shrugged inwardly. If she was back in the fortress, he didn't need to worry about finding her and getting them both home through the storm. He dragged his soaked boots off and looked sourly down at the equally soaked and muddy socks. Wasn't much point to keeping them on, he thought. He peeled them off and left them with the boots on the porch, turning to follow Jackson inside.

The farmhouses on the big farms had been protected by the order with Gabriel's sigil, Jerome sending out Aaron and Frances and Oliver to paint the symbols over them. At the time he'd been thinking of requesting more people from Michigan purely to feed themselves, he'd told Dean later. Now, it was a godsend to have the farm buildings and houses, the barns and silos all intact and able to do their jobs. Jackson and Riley lived in Crows Nest, a keep and village within a high double wall built of stone and brick and filled with salt and iron slag and rubble, a mile to the north-west of the town. It had been built on the peak of the highest hill in the area, the name a gentle mockery of its height. Around fifty metres taller than the town centre, the outlook didn't give much advantage. Jackson had been pushing at Liev to fortify the houses on the major farms, though. Both the farmers wanted to be a lot closer to the stock and fields than they currently were.

The house held the furniture that had been there when a family had been in residence, most of it covered with dust sheets, but the living room and dining room had been opened up, a fire going in the hearth of the generously proportioned living room, and a dozen people in various states of undress were attempting to dry their clothes in front of it. He lifted a hand to his brother as he passed by, following the scent of hot food and the old farmer to the kitchen.

The young woman standing in front of the stove looked familiar, though he couldn't remember where he'd seen her. Long, dark hair was loosely braided in a sheaf that hung down her back and when she looked up at him, he saw dark blue eyes in a pretty oval face.

"The teacher, right?" he hazarded a guess, one brow raised. She smiled and nodded as she ladled out a bowl of the thick stew from the pot on the stove and gestured to the basket of bread on the heavy pine table.

"Rebecca, that's right," she said, handing him the bowl. "And you are?"

"Dean Winchester," he said, lifting a piece of bread and smearing a knifeful of butter over it. He looked up, catching her expression of surprise. "What?"

A flush of red rose up her neck and into her cheeks as she turned away. "Sorry, I thought you'd be … um … older."

Dean paused in mid-chew, frowning slightly at her. "Older than what?"

From the mud-room door that led into the kitchen, he heard Jackson's snort. "Older than you are to be running this outfit," the farmer said, smirking as he came back through the door minus his wet-weather clothing.

"Don't you worry, Rebecca, what he lacks in age, he makes up for in recklessness," Jackson said, taking a bowl from her and sitting across the table from Dean.

"Hilarious," Dean muttered through a mouthful of bread. He glanced back at the young woman standing by the stove. Was that the uninformed view of him, some … wise and seasoned soldier, or statesman or leader? He wasn't sure if the idea was terrifying or ludicrous. Or both.

"You staying put 'til this passes over?" Jackson asked, looking up and past him as Riley came in, walking past the table to the mud-room to dump his gear.

"Not much point in sliding off the road," Dean said with a shrug.

Riley glanced at Jackson as he took the bowl Rebecca offered him, sitting at the end of the table and taking a piece of bread. "Still cats and dogs out there. Barley'll take a month to dry out."

"We can make silage," Jackson suggested mildly.

"Not enough plastic."

The older farmer laughed sourly. "The old-fashioned way," he clarified. "Dig pits and fill 'em and cover 'em over."

"What's silage?" Dean asked, pushing his empty bowl aside.

"Grain hay, packed tight. It heats up, solidifies into a solid mass. Keeps the nutrients that way," Jackson said, running his bread around the bowl.

"Will the stock eat that?" Dean asked, looking from one to the other dubiously.

"Cattle will," Riley said. "Never tried sheep on it, probably not."

"We'll have enough feed anyway, just don't need to waste it."

Patrice came into the kitchen and looked at the three men, dripping onto the floor. In her early fifties, she'd been headmistress of a private and exclusive girls' school before the virus. Two years in Austin as a slave hadn't dimmed her spirit or her will, just turned her hair from ash blonde to silver. She made a noise in the back of her throat and walked to Rebecca.

"Rebecca, grab the clothes from the folks in the parlour, there's a perfectly good industrial dryer sitting in the laundry that will dry their gear a lot faster than the fire will," she said briskly to the younger woman then turned to the men sitting at the table. "You want to get out of those wet clothes; we can run them through as well. There're blankets in the upstairs linen closet that'll keep you modest until they're done."

Turning back for the door, she swept out and they heard the thumps of her feet going up the stairs.

"Heard she was sweet on you, Jackson," Riley said with a slight grin.

"Don't need a mother," Jackson said, giving him a sour look as he pushed his chair back and got to his feet. "Don't need a wife either."

He paused at the end of the table, looking speculatively at Dean. "Got a deck of cards," he said casually. "If you're staying might as well play some poker."

Dean caught Riley's expression as he considered it.

"He cheats," Riley confided, sliding a look at the older man. Jackson turned at the doorway, his mouth dropping open in outrage.

"This from the man who managed to get five queens last game!"

Watching them, Dean decided against it. Not the stakes were likely to be high, but he had the feeling the two of them were far too well-versed in working together to flatten an opponent.

"I'll pass," he said, getting up as Rebecca came back into the kitchen with an armload of wet clothes, heading for the laundry. "Coupla sharps like you two, be out of my league."

"Some leader," Jackson muttered derisively at him as he walked to the door.

Dean laughed. "Reckless was your description, not mine."

* * *

The bed was comfortable, he was tired, the sound of the rain on the roof was steady and soothing, awakening very old memories of lying snug and warm in a bed with that noise on the roof. But he couldn't sleep.

It took Dean almost an hour and a half of restless turning to realise why. He'd been listening. Listening for the soft whisper of breath that some part of him thought should've been there. He rolled onto his back, scowling at the ceiling. It'd taken about three months to get used to the fact that Sam's snoring was no longer a part of the regular night noises he could dismiss. It'd taken longer to get used to the sounds Lisa had made, the shift of her weight in the bed they'd shared and the occasional brush of her skin against his in the darkness. He hadn't realised that in a few weeks, when he was sleeping in a bed, he expected Alex to be there, expected to hear that soft whisper of breath in the silent dark, expected to be able to roll over and slide up against her. It hadn't affected him in Kansas City. On a hunt – even a hunt for supplies – it was an automatic difference, an automatic mental adjustment, but here … the mattress and soft sheets and light down quilt had fooled him.

Apparently, there was no end to the ways he could be fucked over by the want he didn't even allow himself to acknowledge.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Lebanon**_

Ellen slid the pan of eggs into a dish and pulled the biscuits from the oven, filling another plate with them as Aaron came to take the food into the dining room. Oliver lifted the strips of bacon from the broiler, nostrils flaring as he savoured the scent. Bacon, and ham for that matter, tended to be a delicacy, available at some times and not others. The small herd of free-range swine in Michigan had multiplied enough for a couple of boar and several sows to be relocated to Kansas, but it would be a couple of years before the meat was commonplace again. He loaded a platter with the strips and followed Aaron and Ellen into the dining room.

At the long polished table, the residents of the order sat in their usual chairs, loading their plates or sipping coffee. Looking around at them, Ellen thought she'd have to get Bobby out of here. The library was a marvellous resource, and she liked Jerome and Felix, Aaron, Oliver and Marla well enough, but the newest residents were not her kind of folk.

She looked up as Marla stopped at the doorway to the room, her eyes huge. "Bobby? I think I've got a transmission from Rufus."

Bobby, Jerome and Ellen got up immediately and followed her down to the situation room, the hiss and crackle of the radio audible from the library.

"Rufus?" Bobby picked up the mike, sliding into the chair at the same time. "You there, man?"

"Bob, got … here," Rufus' voice came across the airwaves through clouds of static, dropping out in chunks. " –rillo … nest …"

"Rufus, say again, all after 'here'," Bobby said, face screwing up as he fiddled with the tuner, trying to find a clearer signal.

"In Amarillo," Rufus' voice blasted out in a clear patch. "Vampire nest … down … west … Route Forty … can't … Mel … tra–"

"Amarillo, vampire nest," Bobby repeated. "You trapped there?"

"Yeah, need … now, goddammit!"

"We're on our way, Rufus," Bobby said quickly. "Stay put, we're comin'."

He put the mike back on the radio and swivelled around to look at Ellen. She nodded sharply and turned, half-running for their room and gear. He looked at Aaron.

"Get down to town and find Dean, we'll meet him at the gates as soon as he can get there."

Aaron nodded and raced up the stairs.

Jerome looked at Bobby, brows lifted in astonishment. "You're going along?"

Bobby gave him a sour grin. "Walking again, might as well see if I can run and fight as well."

* * *

_**Ghost Valley Farm, Lebanon**_

The big kitchen was bright with sunshine, the storm passed on in the night and the sky washed to a clean, bright blue again. Dean sat at the scrubbed pine table, fingers curled around the mug of coffee and his head resting on one hand.

"You have a big night?" Sam asked as he took in the shadows under his brother's eyes and their slightly unfocussed, baleful expression.

Dean ignored the comment. Sam smiled to himself and pulled down a cup from the shelf, pouring himself a coffee.

"Riley said we're off duty until everything dries off," he said, sitting down at the end of the table.

"I'm heading back to town, you want a ride?" Dean looked at him.

"Sure," Sam said. "So what happened to you last night?"

"Nothing."

"Uh-huh."

Dean tilted his head slightly, looking at Sam from under his brow. "Finish your coffee, we're going."

He drained the remains of his mug and got up, taking it to the sink and heading for the door, ignoring his brother's grin as Sam finished his and followed him.

The yard was still a mess but he'd left the 'pala down the lane a little, and after slopping through the mud, he and Sam got in, the double clunk of the doors and the sight of his brother stretching out his long legs in the well beneath the glove box tugging at him with familiarity.

"How's the research going?" he asked, turning the key and half-closing his eyes in gratitude at the deeply satisfying rumble of the engine.

"Slow," Sam said, leaning against the passenger door. "There's a ton of lore on the Watchers, but no facts. There's a lot of stuff that the Church might've buried, but we'll never see that now."

"Why?"

"Father Emilio says it's probably in the vaults under Vatican City," Sam explained. "Jerome thinks he can get Michel to contact the French hunters to go and look, but it'll take months."

"What about the other order chapters?" Dean frowned as he remembered the conversation about the tablets. "Uh … in Tibet?"

Sam sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Jerome lost contact with the Tibet chapter two days ago," he said. "The others said that they don't have anything like the tablets in their holds."

"Lost contact?"

"Well, it's Tibet, and apparently the place is in the middle of the mountains so it might just be a glitch but …" he trailed off.

"But maybe something else happened," Dean finished unwillingly. "Can they send someone to go look?"

"They're talking about it," Sam told him. "The Australian chapter is the closest. And it's five thousand miles from them."

Dean rubbed a hand reflexively over the prickle on his jaw. "So, best case, months."

"Yeah, best case," Sam agreed. "About half that distance is through the seas between the top of Australia and the mainland Chinese coast. No one has any idea of what survived there but it was never a safe place to travel through, so worst case, it could be a really long time."

Dean glanced sideways at him. "What about flying?"

Sam's brow creased up. "Travis, Marsh and Ernie are still at Tawas," he said slowly. "They can fly anything we could find – but not a lot of planes could've survived Baal. I wouldn't even know where to start looking."

Most of the airports hadn't been concerned about their aircraft being eaten, Dean thought. Even the planes that had been under cover, in the hangers, wouldn't have been safe from the swarms that had devoured everything not metal or stone or plastic. He let out a deep breath.

"Got a plan C or D?"

"Not even close," Sam said, with a shrug. "The distances are just too huge, Dean. And not even Michel has been able to find a satellite to hack into that can give us long-distance views. At least, not yet."

"Chuck's tame programmer – Mitch – anyone asked him?"

Sam shook his head. "He's good, but not that good. And not his field, apparently."

The grey concrete walls rose up alongside the road and Dean followed the curve around to the gates, stopping as the guard came down and checked their tolerance to salt, iron and silver. Liev had cast a devil's trap, perfectly drawn from the Key of Solomon, into the road between the two walls and the weapons of the guards didn't lower until the black car had driven over it without any ill effects.

"Dean!"

Both Winchesters turned to see Aaron running down the road from the keep toward them. Dean pulled over and stopped the car.

"We got a message from Rufus," the slender dark-haired man said as he leaned against the driver's door. "He's trapped in Amarillo, a vampire's nest."

Dean nodded, glancing at Sam. "You want to get a ride back with Aaron?"

Sam's expression hardened. "Hell, no, I'm coming with."

For a moment, Dean thought about arguing and Aaron gestured to the gate behind them.

"Bobby said to meet him and Ellen at the gates."

Repressing a desire to roll his eyes, Dean confined himself to a terse nod and started the car, heading for the western keep.

"You don't have to come, you know," he said, knowing he was wasting his breath. The silence from the passenger seat confirmed it.

"How long are you gonna be?" Sam asked, as they pulled around in front of the towering concrete and stone wall.

"Five minutes," Dean said, getting out of the car. "Your gear's still in the trunk."

"I know," Sam said.

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon**_

Dean looked over the equipment that was spread over the table. The herbs had been in the apothecary stores, dried and packed into small paper sachets, each labelled with their weight and uses. He added a small pot of creamy paste to the table, to mix with the ashes so that the scents would adhere to them. The thick, short blades gleamed menacingly against the wood. There was no mistaking their purpose, the hilts of sharkskin or cross-hatched wood, to prevent a damp palm from slipping at a critical moment. He checked everything as he loaded the gear into the heavy black canvas bags.

Slinging them over his shoulder, he walked out of the small apartment and closed the door behind him, heading for the stairs.

When he reached the main hall, he stopped as he caught sight of the dark-haired girl who'd been helping Alex out with the organisation of the holds, heading for the offices.

"Maria, you seen Alex?"

"Not since this morning," she said, turning to look at him.

"Can you find her? I've got – I'll be out the front," he said, shifting the weight of the bags, the urgency of the situation pressing down on him as heavily as the load.

"I'll try." She nodded and turned down toward the offices.

Walking out through the massive doors, he went down the steps, unlocking the trunk of the car and throwing the bags in, thinking of the quickest route to Amarillo. Through Dodge, maybe. Most direct route anyway.

He turned as Maria came down the steps. "Sorry, I couldn't find her."

Hesitating for a moment, he wondered what message he could leave that wouldn't sound ominous. He shook his head. "Okay, thanks. Can you, uh, let her know I'll be back in a few days?"

She nodded and he walked around to the driver's door, getting in and starting the engine again. A few days ought to cover it, he thought uneasily. It would take about six to seven hours to get down there, depending on how the roads had held up.

Bobby's newly acquired pickup was waiting just outside the gate when he crossed the devil's trap again, a big SUV behind him. He pulled up alongside him.

"Dodge?"

Dean nodded. "Who've you got back there?"

"Peter and his trainees," Bobby said. "Adam, Zoe, Joseph and Danielle. You lead."

Dean put the car into gear and pulled out, increasing speed as they got clear of the smaller roads around the fortress. He should've let Riley know, he thought distractedly, then pushed it aside. They'd be back before the ground and everything else dried enough to worry about it.

* * *

_**Amarillo, Texas**_

Rufus looked around the small air-exchange room with a dissatisfied expression. There was only one way in or out, for anything bigger than a cat, but it was tight quarters, most of them would be forced into squeezing out the way if it came to swinging machetes. It was a mess, he thought aggrievedly.

The whole damned thing had been a mess from go to whoa. The town had looked empty, as empty as all the others, the streets littered and strewn with automobile wrecks and broken buildings, the power lines lying like fat snakes across the roads where they'd fallen. Half the buildings had been torched, long before Baal had made his pass across the country, the scorch marks were still visible on the concrete and brick even after three years.

There hadn't been a single intact store they'd been able to find holding anything of use to take home, and after four days of searching, he'd set them up on the western side of town in a small church, heavily warded against demons and ghosts, thinking they'd have a good solid eight and head out the next day. In the middle of the night, the vamps had come and they'd spent four hours hand-to-hand fighting through neighbourhoods they didn't know, in the dark, being driven north and finally into the mall. And of course, the mall was also the nest, although he hadn't figured that out until yesterday.

And now … now they were stuck in a six by eight ventilation junction in the centre of the biggest nest of vampires he'd seen – scratch that, ever even heard of – their vehicles out of reach, no food and no way out. A mess.

The recce that had nearly gotten him killed yesterday had at least let him get word out to Bobby and he was hoping like hell that the cavalry was on its way. Mel was clawed up and the trainees were living on their nerves, although all of them had been good, had kept themselves together in the fighting and were looking after each other. Christine sat with her back to the wall, Mel's head cushioned on her lap, talking softly to him. Lee and Jack were leaning against the other side, watching the opening steadily.

"Alright, watches," he said, looking at Lee and Jack. "You two take first. Christine and I'll take the next. You see anything, chop its fucking head off."

"Got it," Jack said, shifting to the side of the single access hatch. Lee nodded and moved to the other side.

"Get some sleep," Rufus said quietly to Christine. He looked at Mel's face, paper-white and beaded with sweat in the cool room and swore inwardly.

"Talk to me," he said to the other man, crouching down beside him.

"Might've nicked something inside, boss," Mel said hoarsely. "Not feelin' too good now."

Christine lifted her gaze to meet Rufus', her mouth thinning out. Rufus looked back at his partner, gently lifting his hand aside from the blood-soaked jacket and peeling the shredded cloth back. Even through the man's shirt he could see the streaks of red that were beginning to edge out from the wounds. Medic kits were in the cars. Naturally. He eased the jacket back and Mel pressed his hand over his chest again.

"Get some sleep, Mel. Rescue team's on its way."

"Hope they bring some damned good drugs," Mel whispered, his eyes closing as another tremor shook through him.

Rufus' smile didn't quite make his eyes as he settled himself back against the wall, his machete close by his hand. He was hoping Dean would bring everything.

* * *

_**TX 70, Texas**_

"What'd Rufus say, exactly?" Sam asked, the CB mike in his hand.

"Amarillo," Ellen replied. "Said Route 40 and west. He said something about a nest and being trapped. Mean anything to you?"

"There's a Westgate Mall on Route 40, where it goes out of town to Highway 66," Zoe's voice came through as Sam was thinking. He glanced at Dean, one eyebrow lifted.

"You from Amarillo, Zoe?" Sam clicked the button on the mike.

"Yeah, I was heading east when I got picked up and taken to Austin," she replied.

"A mall would be a good location to hunt people," Sam said to Dean.

"We'll start there," Dean agreed, his foot going down a little harder. They'd had to make a wide detour around Dodge, and pick their way through some of the roads around the borders of the states – two had been impassable, graveyards of bumper to bumper cars lined up along all four lanes – but he was still fairly confident they'd make Amarillo before nightfall.

"Think the nest is in the mall?" Sam asked.

"I think that's the only reason Rufus would've gotten pinned down," Dean said thoughtfully.

"Sam, you still on?" Ellen said, her voice crackling a little.

"Yeah, Ellen," Sam picked up the mike again.

"Rufus said something about Mel – we didn't catch it, but it didn't sound good," she said. "I saw Merrin, brought everything I could think of."

"Alright, we'll start with the mall," Sam said slowly. "We'll take point, Dean, me, Adam and Joseph. Bobby, Danielle and Zoe got the rear. Ellen, you and Peter'll have to get them out when we find them."

There was a silence for a few moments and Dean grimaced, imagining the conversation in the car behind them.

"Right, we'll go with that," Ellen came back, her voice tense. "See you in there. Out."

"Out."

Sam put the mike back and slid a glance at his brother. "Think that was Bobby?"

"Yeah, pretty sure," Dean said disparagingly. "First time out, can't wait to get himself killed."

"Sounds like Ellen won the round," Sam offered hopefully.

Dean snorted. "Bobby's driving," he said. "Wait til we get there."

"You want to take Adam or Joseph?"

Dean licked his lips then shrugged. "Doesn't matter. We're going in fast and hard. Ellen brought dead man's blood, she and Peter can carry that in the projectors. Hopefully, the bloodsuckers'll still be sleeping soundly."

"Hopefully," Sam echoed softly.

* * *

_**Amarillo, Texas**_

Dean pulled into the huge parking lot from the frontage road, driving around the side of the V-shaped building as he and Sam looked for the loading docks. They found them on the southern side of the building, Dean slowing as he looked along the featureless brick walls.

"That'll do us," he said, pulling into drive through running past the smaller docks further west and stopping in front of the big white roller doors.

Behind the black car, Bobby stopped his pickup and Joseph parked the SUV.

Gear bags were pulled from the vehicles and weapons checked. Sam mixed the ashes of skunk cabbage, trillium and saffron into a tub of lanolin and daubed the mixture over his skin, passing the scent disguise on to his brother as he buckled the sheath holding a twenty-two inch machete around his hips. The ash mixture was strong, strong enough to hide their scents from the creatures whose senses were several times more refined than their own. Zoe's nose wrinkled up as she smeared it over her skin, her eyes watering as the odours filled her nose.

"Alright," Dean looked up at the sky. "Got about two hours of real daylight left. Joseph, you're with Sam, you take right flank. Adam, you and me'll be left. Peter and Ellen, behind us. Bobby, Danielle and Zoe, you're rear but if Peter and Ellen need help that's you, Danielle, right?"

The tall girl nodded, fingers tightening around the hilt of her knife.

"Pretty sure this is a nest and we don't know how big it is, but if they got Mel and Rufus pinned down, we're going to assume it's a big one. That means we stay together. No matter what. You watch your back and your partner's and you concentrate every fucking second," he paused and looked around them. "Vampires are silent and they're fast. The older ones are so fast you won't see them straight on. You use all your senses and they stay on high alert the whole time. To kill them, you take the head. And it's better to do it with one swing."

He looked around them, seeing the tension in their faces. Even Ellen and Bobby looked unhappy, he thought. Unsurprising. Neither had been in action for awhile and this was a helluva reintroduction.

"We go in as quietly as we can," he continued. "They'll probably hear us, can't help that, but if they are still sleeping, we might be able to get by." He looked at Sam. "As soon as we've got them, you take them, Ellen and these kids and head home. Peter, Bobby and me'll burn the place down and pick off the rest as they come out."

Sam looked at him mulishly. It was the first he'd heard of that end of the plan, yet Dean must've been thinking about it on the drive. He knew better than to argue about it in front of the others and his face darkened as he realised how neatly his brother had trapped him.

"Where do we start?" Peter asked, looking at Dean.

"If they got surrounded in there, Rufus would've picked somewhere defensible to hole up. Somewhere small, maybe, with a just a single way in and out. I'm thinking the ventilation system, somewhere in the building. The rest of the place, the stores … they'll be too open."

Peter nodded. "Makes sense."

"We got no way of pulling the schematics on this place, but most of the Westgate malls followed the rough same layouts – bathrooms, offices, docks and store-rooms, usually in the same areas," Bobby added, gesturing vaguely at the building beside them. "The aircon towers and central ventilation system is over this roof."

"Start there," Dean said, turning for the postern door that was set into the wall beside the big rollers.

There was no power on in the town and the emergency generators for the mall had long since died. Light filtered in through the filthy skylights and atrium, murky and dim and filling the long wide corridors and open areas with shadows. The store they moved through had once been Sears. Now it was empty, the metal and plastic shelving twisted and fallen, creating a hazard to move through, everything else either gone or smashed to pieces. Their boots crunched over the fine debris that littered the floor, no matter how carefully they placed their feet.

A fucking maze, Dean thought, looking around uneasily. Corridors and dead-ends and alcoves and display corners were everywhere and there was no clear line of sight at all. He gestured to Adam to close up a little with Sam and Joseph as the space narrowed toward yet another corridor, shifting his grip on the heavy thirty-inch blade in his hand.

A movement in the corner of his eye snapped his head around and he saw his brother, machete gesturing to the locked steel door in the corridor just ahead. Nodding, he moved forward, flicking a sideways glance to make sure Adam was following and pulling the set of picks from his jacket pocket. The lock was a simple Yale and gave in thirty seconds but he was acutely aware of the sound of the pins as he forced them, and the click as the tenon withdrew.

The doorway opened outwardly, the hall beyond was completely black. Dean shoved the picks back into his pocket, fingers feeling for the round barrel of his flashlight at the same time, dragging it out and flicking it on.

In the split second he registered the white faces in front of him, his mind threw an image at him, from a film seen a long time ago, white faces against the darkness and he staggered back, the overlapping images acting on his instincts.

"Back!"

The vampires seethed out of the blackness of the hall, and all thought disappeared in the automatic responses, trained into muscle and nerve, drop, swing, cut, back and swing again. The first three vamps lost their heads to the machetes of the Winchester brothers in the first few seconds, but the weight of numbers pushed them back into the wider hallway, where the targets spread out.

They made a hissing sound, Adam realised remotely, his blade lifting and slicing off the hand as it reached for him without any volition, twisting aside as the hiss became a shriek of outrage. Falling backward, he lifted his machete in front of him defensively when his vision was filled with dead white skin, vivid, burning eyes and a bristling mouthful of fangs. There was a metallic singing and the head disappeared, hitting the wall opposite with a deep thud. Adam caught a glimpse of Dean turning away as he rolled back onto his feet, no time for thanks or even acknowledgement as the next fang sprang toward him.

Bobby winced as his foot slid out on the blood-slicked floor, twisting his knee savagely. He could feel the weight of the blade as it whistled through the air, not remembering feeling that before, back when he'd been three years younger and twice as fit. The edge bit into the side of the neck and he yanked it free when he realised he didn't have enough of his weight behind the blow, shifting back and getting his balance again as the creature swung around and came for him out of the shadows.

"Come on," Peter said in a low voice to Ellen, gripping her shoulder and dragging her toward the open blackness of the door. She nodded, shifting the weight of the medical pack on her back and ducking as a vampire leapt over her, impaling itself on Peter's thick blade, flung off as he spun around and strode after it, taking the head with a single, powerful sweep.

The corridor was filled with muted noise, the sing and whistle of the metal through the air, the hissing and snarling of the vampires still on their feet, the rasp of breath drawn hard in and out and the oddly muffled thuds when the long knives met dead flesh and sliced through and the heads fell and bounced along the floor.

Danielle pivoted in place, the cut back-and-single-handed, jarring on the bones of the spine without her weight behind it. She fell to her knees as the vampire dropped onto her, pulling out a second, slimmer knife without hesitation and plunging it into the creature's eye, freeing her machete as it reared back screaming and cutting the scream off with a fluid sweep that was backed up by her hundred and ten pounds of muscle and bone.

She looked across at Zoe, seeing the slim olive-skinned girl decapitate the monster in front of her with a shrill shriek of rage, and turned away, following Peter and Ellen into the darkness.

* * *

"Rufus!" Ellen shouted, the sound echoing furiously in the narrow, metal-lined corridor and making both her and Peter flinch at the noise.

"Yeah!"

They both heard the shout, distant but clear and Peter flashed his light down the corridor, seeing the turning ahead.

In the ventilation room, Rufus crouched beside the access panel, the small, battery-operated screwdriver whining as he freed the screws holding it in place and pulled it free.

"Dammit, Ellen, that you?" he said, crawling out as the light flashed around the corner and he saw Peter's big frame shadowy behind the beam, and Ellen's smaller one behind him.

Turning back into the room, he gestured to the opening. "Jack, Lee, Christine, get out and tell Peter I'm bringing out Mel."

The three trainees nodded and eeled out of the small opening, Jack twisting to get his shoulders through. Rufus refused to look at Mel's face, slipping an arm under his shoulders and pulling him toward the opening, stopping by the edge and peering out.

"Peter, you ready, he's pretty much a dead weight," he warned the Roman hunter, easing Mel through. He felt the weight taken on the other side, and heard Ellen's sharp wordless exclamation, then Mel was out and he could follow.

The corridor was lit by flashlights. "Christine, Jack, Lee, take point." Rufus instructed them as Ellen felt for Mel's pulse, her face tense in the reflected light. "Danielle, you and Ellen behind us. Peter, he's a heavy sonofabitch, take both us to get him out of here without making those wounds worse."

Peter nodded, looking at Ellen.

"Give me a second, Rufus," she said tightly, pulling a hypodermic from the satchel at her side. "He's running a raging fever. The ampicillin'll take it down; give him a better shot if we're dragging him through a running fight."

"Make it fast," he said, looking back at Peter. "Dean and Bobby buying us time out there?"

"Yeah, how big is this nest?" Peter looked up at him as Ellen finished the injection and tucked the empty syringe back in the pack.

"More than sixty," Rufus said, crouching by Mel's legs.

"Sixty?" Ellen froze at the words. "But – we only saw a dozen, outside, at most –"

"You think I'd get stuck for a dozen?" Rufus said, shaking his head as Peter took Mel's shoulders and they both lifted.

"That means –"

"Yeah, come on," Peter cut her off, forcing her to move as he started walking.

* * *

Dean turned, a second before the corridor filled, an instinct honed so brightly that he wasn't aware of the intention until his machete was swinging. The ceiling panels dropped to either side of him and the fangs fell onto the hunters, not a few but dozens. He caught a glimpse of Rufus and Peter, staggering out of the black doorway with someone between them, the gleam and thud of the knives of the people surrounding them as they pressed along the wall of the corridor, and he turned away, hacking at the horde of the undead, a remote recognition at the back of his mind that he needed to buy more time, needed to give them more time to get out and away.

Sam pulled the second blade from its sheath at the back of his hip as the narrow space seemed to fill with vampires, no longer aiming but swinging in short, deadly arcs, feeling the bite of the edge and the spray of cold blood as he cut his way across to Ellen and Peter and Rufus, trying to make a hole big enough for them to get through. He was dimly aware of his brother, behind him, the characteristic silence with which Dean fought underlaid by the occasional grunt as he took a blow or aimed one. He caught a glimpse of Bobby, swinging wildly, the old man's face slick with sweat, scratches painted a vivid red across one cheek, his breathing thickening.

"Bobby, stay with Ellen and Peter," he shouted, dropping to the floor and swinging his leg out wide, bringing down three vampires and rolling to his knees to take the heads as they flickered up past him.

"Worry about yerself!" Bobby grunted before he was thrown across the width of the corridor into the wall, his breath disappearing as he slid down to the floor. Sam lurched to his feet, slowing as a flick of blonde hair darted in front of the old man and Christine sliced at the back of the knees of the vampire, taking off the head as it toppled to the floor.

"Get him out of here!" Sam yelled, and twisted aside as he sensed the weight behind him, feeling the talons rake across his neck, drawing blood but going no deeper. He turned back to Dean and Adam and his eyes widened in horror.

The corridor beyond his brother was nothing but white faces and the bloodied gleam of long fangs. Sam's foot slid out from under him as he tried to move forward, seeing the arms reaching out for Dean, two vampires pinning the machete against his side, another four leaping to bring him down.

"Adam! Move!" he heard his own voice booming out of his throat as he caught a glimpse of Dean's face. "Don't let them take him!"

"Adam!" Dean's voice was muffled by the pack surrounding him.

Adam stood frozen, the machete in his hand raised but unmoving, blood dripping from the edge and tip and crawling down his hand and wrist. Stumbling forward, Sam slammed into him, knocking him sideways into the wall as the vampires closed around Dean and vanished into the blackness of the ventilation doorway.

"No!" He hacked at the remaining fangs, clearing a path to the doorway and racing down the short hall. At the turning, he looked toward the small ventilation room, the panel tossed to one side. In the other direction a grate was slightly askew on the floor, and he realised that the vamp's weren't using the mall itself for the nest, but the network of tunnels and subterranean passages underneath it. He felt a hand close around his arm and swung abruptly toward it, machete raised.

"Take it easy, it's me," Peter said, looking past him to the grate. "They went down?"

Sam nodded frantically. "You should go, take the others to safety."

"Bobby and Ellen will get them back to Kansas," Peter said tersely. "Jack and Rufus elected to stay."

Sam looked past the tall Roman hunter to the two silent men behind him. "What about the rest?"

"The trainees will go with them, it's enough of a guard to keep them from getting into too much trouble," Rufus said. "We going or what?"

"How many, Rufus?" Sam ground out, looking at the older man.

"There were at least sixty, when they drove us from where we were camping to here," Rufus said steadily. "There might be more. There might not."

"Why would they take Dean?" Jack asked, looking from Sam to Peter.

"No idea," Sam said, the muscle jumping at the point of his jaw. "Come on."

* * *

Dean struggled against the hands holding him, knowing it was futile, knowing he was only wasting his energy. There were at least ten surrounding him, and they weren't newly made, they were strong and hard to see and he thought he was in very deep trouble this time.

It'd come as a surprise when they'd pitched him headfirst down through the grate in the floor, though maybe, he thought, it shouldn't have. The mall, even powerless and dim, wasn't dark enough for vampires to rest without fear. The newness of the building had made it easy to forget about the underground possibilities, that kind of foresight was more obvious when you were dealing with the older cities, New York or Boston, Chicago even, with their miles of tunnels and sewer lines and subways. The tunnel was pitch black. His eyes were open and he couldn't see the vamps carrying him, let alone any details of where they were or where they were going. Was going to make getting back out an interesting exercise.

He felt the air movement first, sending a miasma of thick vampire scent over him, rotten flowers and decomposing meat and the sweetish-sour coppery tang of blood. He opened his eyes wider, choosing not to recognise that the level of light hadn't improved, his other senses taking up the slack, telling him he was a wide space, an open space, and there were a lot of vampires surrounding him, a helluva lot. He could hear them, the rustle of the fabric of their clothes, could feel the avarice of their eyes on him.

"One human?" the sepulchral whisper came from his right as he was dropped to the ground, steel-like hands holding him down. A woman's voice, maybe.

"Not to feed," another voice, thickly accented, was to his left. Older, he thought, or stronger.

"We are starving, Raoul!" the first voice shrilled, getting closer. "There have been no fresh feeds in weeks!"

"And you would drink this one dry and have nothing else forever?" Raoul replied coldly. Dean felt a shiver slip through him at the prosaic tone. "There are people out there, these, this one, proves it. He will lead us back to them and we will fill ourselves with them."

"Why would a human do that?" a third voice said threadily, much closer. He could hear panting and felt the touch of the harsh breath against his temple.

"Because he won't be human. He will be one of us," Raoul said, his voice warming and dropping. Dean twisted his head aside as he felt a hand slip down the side of his face, the fingers icy cold. "So warm, so full of life. But a short life, human, just a short, sweet life that is over too quickly. With us, you can live forever."

"Pass," Dean snapped, locking his teeth together as he heard the whine of metal drawn from leather.

"That is not an option," Raoul said with a throaty chuckle.

Something cold dripped onto his face and Dean shut his eyes tightly, closing his lips at the same time, backing his tongue into his throat. The dripping became faster, became a drizzle, then a trickle and steely fingers dug into the muscles of his jaw, the inexorable pressure forcing his mouth open. The liquid filled his mouth quickly, coating his tongue, lapping around his teeth, spilling out along the corner.

"Seal his nose," Raoul snapped and he felt fingers close the only other airway he had. His lungs ached … and then burned … and he felt his awareness dissolving, dissipating as the oxygen was used up and no more was available to replenish it. A fist hit him in the diaphragm and he gasped, the last of his air forced out and reflex, the automatic reflex of the body, betrayed him as he sucked fresh air in, and with it, the blood that flowed from the vampire beside him.

"Better."

Coughing and trying to spit out the liquid that was spilling over his lips and chin, Dean twisted against the hands that held him rigidly, feeling the blood spilling down his throat, into his stomach, into his blood, changing him.

The blackness began to lighten and his eyes rolled back as a murmuring, not heard but felt, in the spaces of his skull, in the blood that pumped slower and slower through his veins, resolving into a voice. Into words. Into a message.


	3. Chapter 3 A Minute Seems Like a Lifetime

**Chapter 3 A Minute Seems Like a Lifetime**

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Lebanon**_

Jerome grimaced as he tried to adjust the signal coming in fits and starts from Ellen. "Ellen, I'm not receiving you, say again," he said.

"Vampire … lore on … cure, Jerome, find … cure!" Ellen's voice faded out as it got higher and he left the set on, the mike on the desk.

"Aaron! Oliver!"

The two associates ran through the library at the bellowed summons, slowing on the stairs that led down to the situation room.

"We need to find anything at all on a cure for vampirism," Jerome snapped at them.

Aaron looked at him doubtfully but Oliver swung around and raced for the hall and the stairs.

"I've never heard of one, Professor Ackers," Aaron said, looking across the room after Oliver. "Not that we've been all through the books yet, by any means –"

"Aaron, I didn't ask if you'd heard of a cure," Jerome said through his teeth as he spun his chair around. "I told you to look for one. Tell Chuck and Mitch to look through what they've digitalised so far, then hit the stacks – and read fast!"

He turned away as Aaron blinked at him, pushing himself to the computer monitors and typing in the access code for the uplink to the other chapters. If there was such a thing, one of the holds would have it, he told himself. He hadn't caught all of the words that Ellen had tried to tell him, but he was pretty sure that he'd heard Dean's name in the few that he had understood.

* * *

_**TX 70 N, Texas**_

"You get through?" Bobby asked her as she slammed the mike back on the hook in frustration.

"I don't know," Ellen said, glancing back into the rear seat at Mel worriedly. "I think so, enough. I hope so."

"You think they took him to turn him?"

She shook her head, turning away from him to look out the window. "I can't imagine why, but yeah, I think they did."

"Where do you want to stop to patch up Mel?" Bobby glanced in the rearview mirror at the big man lying in the back.

"Take us at least a hundred miles from that place, Bobby," Ellen said tiredly. "At least a hundred."

Behind them, driving the SUV, Joseph's fingers were white around the steering wheel, the silence in the car an audible indication that his tension was shared by the others. In the rear, Adam stared out the window, aware that Danielle was sitting as far from him as she could, crowding Zoe on the other side. In the front seat, Lee, Christine and Joseph looked rigidly through the windshield.

He didn't know what had happened. He'd turned around, hearing his half-brother's yell of surprise and had seen a wall of them, fangs and shining eyes and dead faces and he'd just been … unable … to move. Unable to do anything as they'd closed around Dean and dragged him away. Unable to speak or swing or blink or breathe. Sam had knocked him into the wall and the … shock … or whatever it had been had gone, but by then it had been far too late.

He could feel their mute accusations, filling the car, filling his head. He'd left his brother to die, to be turned by the monsters without raising a finger to help. He wanted to scream at them, to explain, to justify or rationalise what had happened somehow but he couldn't. Even if he could, it wouldn't help. Wouldn't bring Dean back.

The guns … the training … Rufus and his endless criticisms and sarcastic comments … even the skinwalker pack and Dean killing Isaac … none of it had hit him the way that wall of monsters in the dark had. None of them had been … quite real … not in the way he'd seen death stalking him in the glittering eyes lit up by the flashlights. Was he a coward? Or had he been kidding himself this whole time? Believing that he knew better, knew more than the men and women he'd been living with these last few months. Knew more than his father had, believing that John could've done more, could've made the effort to spend more time with them …

… but at the risk of leading things like that back to them, he recognised slowly. They had been targeted by monsters, years and years after John had disappeared and never come back. Ghouls. Wanting revenge. Dean had reluctantly told him that the ghouls had found him and his mother easily because they'd never left Windom. It was the one thing he allowed that John had slipped up on, not making them move after he'd killed the monster. But how could he have known that, Adam thought helplessly. How could anyone predict what a monster would or wouldn't do?

Sam's look of disbelief and fury flickered through his thoughts again and he felt the hot rush of shame and guilt filling him, burning through everything he'd thought, had believed in. He'd been wrong. Dead wrong. But it wasn't him who had to pay the price for that.

* * *

_**Amarillo, Texas**_

In the turgid darkness of his mind, Dean saw and heard.

_An ancient time. A woman, dark-skinned, with long, black hair and cold, black eyes and a full, round belly, distended in pregnancy, the skin rippling with the movement of the things she carried. Darkness and the fear in the eyes of a man who sat by a flickering camp-fire. Pale, hard skin and blood-red eyes. A spiralling wind, rising up from a wide plain, carrying thousands of children, their arms spread wide, their skin smooth and marble-cold, their eyes glowing vivid in their still faces, blood dripping from every small mouth. A black cloud that covered the land in shadow. A face … smooth and untouched by years of time, aeons of time, pale, bright eyes and a slow, satisfied smile that revealed a single point between the thick, carnelian lips …_

He woke abruptly, a distant plink-plink noise sounding like a church bell in his head, too loud, too close. His eyes opened and he realised that he could see, the world stark and flat and two-dimensional in shades of grey and black but visible again. It occurred to him slowly that no one had brought a light into the room. His vision had changed. Was changing. He was changing.

The thought caught him by the throat and wouldn't let go. Behind it, there was a waiting ocean of might-have-beens and could-haves, of sorrow and pain. He rolled to his feet, pushing that ocean aside. He would look at that after … if there was an after.

He stepped forward and stopped, feeling the changes in his body already. Without having to test it, he knew he was stronger. A lot stronger. And faster. He turned his head, identifying the maddening plink-plink noise that was so difficult to shut out. In the tunnel, forty yards away, a pipe was leaking, the droplets falling to the shallow pool on the floor. He listened, deliberately now, and heard. Footsteps, four men, not vampires, moving this way from the tunnel he'd come in through. Sam, he thought. And Peter. He recognised the characteristic tread of Rufus, missing three toes from his left foot and dragging the ball of that foot a little due to it. He didn't recognise the fourth man. Possibly one of the juniors, he thought remotely.

Turning, he walked away from them, moving deeper into the labyrinth of tunnels and junctions under the mall. He had work to do here first. Then he would find them, easily, following the sounds of their hearts and the smell of their blood if he had to. He would find them and tell Sam to do what he had to, to put an end to it.

He could hear the muted whispers of the vampires, moving through the tunnels, hunting rats and mice and anything that lived down here that had blood in its veins. He identified the middens of the dead by the faint smell on the damp, cool air. Dried and desiccated corpses that been drained of every last drop. A group of survivors, maybe. Wandering into the wrong place at the wrong time. He noticed that the thought brought no emotion, one way or the other and his brows drew together a little.

They'd taken his jacket, with the flashlight and the Colt but had left the machete and his fingers curled tightly around it, the rough hilt pressing against the palm. He was pretty sure his heart was no longer beating but blood surged through his veins, sparkling with energy, with strength. Vampire's blood. He slowed a little as the name eluded him for a long moment.

_Raoul_.

Raoul's blood. Raoul would be spilling a lot more today.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Lebanon**_

Jerome's brows shot up as he read the replies to his requests from both France and Australia. He shoved the chair back from the desk, swinging it around and driving it at full speed to the ramp that led up to the library. He reached the top with the momentum as Oliver shot into the room from the other end.

"We should have it here – a Campbell invention – check the –" he yelled at the young man.

"I've got it!" Oliver cut him off, waving a tattered, leather-bound book in his hand and striding over to the table.

"How the hell – let me see," Jerome leaned forward as Oliver put the book in front of him, flipping open to the page he'd marked.

"It was in the Poisons section, that's why I didn't remember it straight away," he said, leaning over the book. "It was tried in 1617 and some modifications were made after the first victims died. The Campbells brought the successful recipe with them to the United States in 1620."

Jerome nodded. "What about after, did anyone else die of it?"

"No, but they found that the recipe could only succeed if the victim had not ingested human blood. Once the new vampire drinks, there is no turning back." He put a second book on the table, this one entitled _Supernatural Disease and Infection_.

"The exact nature of the transference of the powers and the seeming death of the vampire hasn't been precisely studied, but in this section," he continued, running a nail along the edge of the pages and opening the pages to the chapter. "Here, the infection or mutation is passed through blood contact. The vampire's blood, when ingested _only_, produces the same effects in the recipient's body as in the original subject. The heart stops pumping, petrification of the body's cells begins, locking the body into the exact moment of their transformation, respiration is still functional but body temperature drops to ambient levels in six hours and then does not rise unless blood is taken internally. It is the victim's blood that provides colour and the feeling of warmth to a vampire, showing whether or not it has fed in the previous twenty four hours. After twenty four hours, the effects diminish until the body is once again cold, and the skin cold and pale and hard."

"Christ!" Jerome said, pushing himself away from the table and down the ramp again.

"What's wrong?" Oliver asked, hurrying down after him.

"We've got everything that cure needs, except the blood of the vampire that turned him," Jerome rattled out, picking up the mike of the SSB. "And they won't know to get it, they don't know there's a cure."

"CQ, CQ. Calling CQ and standing by," he snapped into the mike. "Come on, Ellen, be listening, goddammit. CQ, CQ. Calling CQ. This is Kilo-Lima-Lima-Hotel-Zero-Niner, calling CQ and standing by."

"Roger, Kilo-Lima-Lima-Hotel-Zero-Niner. This is Echo-Bravo-Mike-Zero-Five-Two, receiving you," Ellen's voice sounded loud and clear from the speaker and Jerome closed his eyes in relief.

"Ellen, you have to go back," he said, "We've got a cure, repeat, got a cure for vampirism but it needs the blood of the vampire that initiated the fledgling, over."

"God, Jerome, you're kidding me, aren't you?"

He could hear the frustration and exasperation in her voice clearly. "Negative, Ellen. Not kidding you. You can't let them just kill all the vamps and Dean – he has to be brought back – and someone has to tell them that he can be turned back if he doesn't feed."

"Lemme get this straight," Bobby came on, his voice tense and scratchy. "We can save Dean. But he needs the blood of the vamp that turned him? And if he feeds, it's all over."

"Roger, yeah, that's correct, Bobby."

"But you've got everything else we need, for certain?"

"We do," Jerome promised, glancing at Oliver who nodded vehemently.

"Alright, we're on it. Out."

"Out."

He put the mike back and leaned back in the chair with a deep sigh, closing his eyes.

"Oliver."

"Yessir," Oliver said, straightening up.

"Get everything ready," Jerome told him, opening his eyes and turning to look at him. "Tell Frances to get down to the town and get Kim and Merrin … the whole lot – that cure has to be ready as soon as they get here and give us the blood."

"Yessir!"

Jerome watched him bound back up the stairs, sweeping up both books as he passed the table and heading back down the hall. Now, he only had to tell Alex, he thought uncomfortably.

* * *

_**TX 70 N, Kansas**_

The pickup and the SUV sat, one behind the other, on the shoulder of the highway as Bobby and Ellen argued.

"Dammit, Ellen," Bobby snapped, slamming his hand on the quarter panel in frustration. "I love you, I do, but you can't tell me what to do!"

"Bobby, you know –"

"No, I'm goin'," he said, turning away from her. "I ain't Jo, Ellen. You need to get Mel back to Lebanon. Christine, you, Adam, Zoe and Lee are riding shotgun in the SUV with Ellen and Mel. You stick together and you kill anything that gets in your way." He turned to the others. "Joe, you and Danielle come back with me, we gotta get back to Sam and Rufus before they find Dean."

He looked at Ellen as the trainees shifted to the different vehicles, Joseph and Adam lifting Mel out of the dual cab pickup and carrying him carefully to the SUV.

"Get him to Dr Kim and do it fast as you can," he told her. "We're gonna be on your heels, even if we have to wrap Dean in chains and leave him in the trunk for the whole ride. I'll see you in Lebanon."

She scowled at him for a moment then strode over and hugged him tightly. "You bring him back. And don't you take any stupid risks, Bobby. I couldn't stand to lose you."

He kissed her hard and turned away, climbing into the pickup and starting the engine. Joseph and Danielle got in beside him, and they watched Ellen manoeuvre the SUV off the shoulder and back on the road, Bobby grunting in approval as he saw her put her foot down. He turned the truck around and bumped them over the meridian strip, putting the accelerator down to the floor. From here, it was a straight run back to Amarillo.

He could feel the curiosity of the two riding with him but he couldn't talk about the cure or Dean or how the hell they were going to find Sam in the maze of the mall and the tunnels at night when all the vampires would be out, prowling for food. He'd spent the last three hours feeling sick to his stomach with worry about the man he considered a son, keeping his fears under lock and key, and fanning the small flame of hope that there was a solution, an answer to save Dean. Now he that had one, he was on the clock to get back there and warn them in time. _God's sense of humour_, he thought sourly.

* * *

_**Amarillo, Texas**_

Peter walked along the narrow access tunnel, glancing sideways at the tall man striding beside him. Like most successful hunters, Andante had a vivid imagination, and he needed no prompts to imagine what Sam was feeling. Whether the vamps had taken his brother to feed from, or to turn, there was little likelihood of being able to save Dean now.

He'd seen the man in action, and he'd seen the respect and loyalty he'd pulled from the disparate ranks of the people he'd gathered together, had saved. His death, one way or the other, would go hard with the people in Kansas, and those in the northern state. And he wasn't sure that Dean's brother would be able to take up the slack left by his loss.

Sam walked steadily through the tunnel, ignoring the occasional look he felt from Peter, ignoring the fear and thoughts that clamoured for attention in the back of his mind. He would find Dean and get him out, and that was the only thought he had room for now. _You'll have to kill him_. The knowledge seeped in past his control and he shuddered slightly, his step faltering. _A vampire, with Dean's skills, with his knowledge and strength?_

He shoved the thought aside. He would do it, at the last, if there was no other way. Until he reached that point, he would believe that he could save his brother.

They'd killed a few fangs already, attacking from the cross-tunnels and had left their bodies lying in the tunnel. Better than breadcrumbs for finding their back, he thought darkly. Down here, the vampires had all the advantages and it was more luck than skill that they'd gotten this far. He didn't know how he was going to be able to find Dean in the lightless labyrinth if his brother didn't want to be found.

* * *

They found the first body at the next intersection. Head gone. And Sam felt a spurt of hope. If Dean was hunting them, he couldn't be dead – and maybe he'd gotten free before he'd been turned.

Lengthening their strides, they moved faster through the darkness, flashlights flickering over the smooth concrete walls and floors, drawing attention to themselves was unavoidable.

At the next junction, a small round chamber with four tunnels leading out from it, Sam stopped dead.

There were more bodies. _Ten_, he counted feverishly, the heads lying where they'd fallen. _Ten_. All cleanly taken.

Joseph looked at the carnage, leaning past Peter. "Could he have –?"

Rufus answered, glancing at Sam. "No."

"So he's a vampire now?" Joseph asked uneasily.

"It seems to be that way," Peter said, clearing his throat. "Come on, if he's cleaning them out, he'll be easy to follow."

Sam nodded silently, stepping over the first body. Rufus and Peter were right, he thought distantly. A human hunter couldn't take on ten alone. Couldn't move fast enough. Wasn't strong enough. He stopped the thoughts there and followed Peter into the tunnel where a blood trail dripped along the floor.

* * *

Bobby stopped the pick up in front of the loading bay and swung out, going to the metal box in the back. Rufus had told Ellen that the there'd been at least sixty fangs inside the mall. They'd taken a lot down, getting Mel and the kids out, maybe twenty or more in the melee in the corridor. He could count on Sam and the others taking a few more. But they'd need something to hold the monsters off them, something to incapacitate them while they butchered the rest. He pulled out his gear bag, looking for the pack of flares that he knew was somewhere in there, smiling slightly in relief as his fingers curled around the distinctive round tubes.

Magnesium flares. They burned hot and white, unbearably brilliant. He rummaged a little more, pulling out the welding flash glasses. He had two pairs only. Looking around, he tossed one at Joseph.

"Once the flares go," he told Danielle and Lee. "You get back from wherever we are. They'll blind you as readily as they do the vampires. You'll be watching out for stragglers, got it?"

They nodded. Joseph settled the glasses on his forehead and picked up his machete, following Bobby into the Sears store.

The grate had been left off the access hole and dropping into the tunnel, Bobby could see where Sam and the others had passed easily enough, the splash of blood and the severed head on the floor leading the way.

"We gotta hurry," he said in a low voice. "We need that blood and we need to get to Dean before they do."

* * *

Dean stopped, wiping the edge of the machete on the body at his feet as he listened. Footsteps, a whispered voice, the scrape of a blade drawn free from the leather binding. Who the hell was joining the party, he wondered remotely? It didn't matter. Up ahead, not far, he could hear movement, the soft echoes in a much larger space. That would be the centre of the nest, he thought.

He wiped the back of his hand over his face, eyes screwing shut against the cramp of hunger that bit into him. The need was getting stronger. Pulling at him. Clawing at him. He thought of Famine's assertion, in Emporia, and his mouth stretched out in a cold, humourless grin. Well, he was hungry now, he thought, walking into the tunnel. He was fucking hungry now.

As a human, he'd known how to move without noise. As a vampire, he ghosted along the tunnel, not even the occasional rat noticed his passing. He stopped to one side of the tunnel when he saw the junction ahead, advancing incrementally along the wall to avoid the vampire's enhanced acuity of motion perception. In the encounter he'd just had, taking ten fangs down had been a dance using senses that were so much more powerful than he was used to it'd felt as if he'd known what they were going to do before they did it. There would be more than ten here, he thought, sliding down the wall to look into the area below eye level. He would have to be faster and smoother.

His gaze flickered across the room and he drew back slightly. _Twenty two_. One other tunnel leading into the junction from his nine o'clock and none near it. The precise layout of the area was in his mind, the location of each fang known, the distances between them, the probable evasions, offence and defensive tactics they would use. His father had taught him, before he'd ever set foot in a classroom, that any offence had to be the result of strategy and character. Either would not result in victory. Only both could succeed. He'd seen that philosophy prove itself over and over in his life. The strategies of Heaven and Hell had failed because they had failed to recognise that simple fact, failed to recognise the character of those they manipulated. He drew in a deep breath and let it out, releasing at the same time the furious red hunger and the cold, black rage that he'd held back for the past two hours.

Raoul's gaze snapped up as the head flew past him, flicking around the room and seeing body after body falling. He launched himself blindly at the fledgling he'd made, talons ripping through the thin shirt, skating through the skin and over the hard curves of the ribs as his aim missed the unprotected torso, the newly-made vampire turning faster than he'd thought possible and swaying to one side just far enough. He landed on his feet, and stumbled on the body there, ducking as the singing metal blade split the air above him and lunging for the man's hips.

Dean slammed the point of his elbow into the side of the vampire's head as he swung the blade, and it bit through the vamp's arm, soaking him to the shoulder in a gout of cold blood. Raoul dropped under the blow and rolled away fast, coming to his feet and shaking his head to clear the grey mist that was clouding his vision, the mostly severed arm hanging by his side.

"You think to redeem yourself with this slaughter?" he snarled at Dean, circling him, his feet sliding along the slippery floor to avoid tripping over the dead that were tangled in heaps around the room.

"No," Dean said shortly, swinging around to bury his machete in the abdomen of the vampire who'd crept behind him, reversing the turn to take its head as it stumbled back, shrieking in agony.

"No, I don't see myself lasting out this night," he continued, stalking the older vampire across the room, blood flying off the blade in a sweeping shower of droplets as he swung it up.

* * *

"No," Danielle said, freezing with her hand against the wall of the tunnel. "This way, Bobby!"

"How –"

"Listen!" She cocked her head at the head of the northern tunnel. Bobby held his breath, listening and nodded slowly.

"You two hang back a little," he said to her and Lee. "Jack, got the flare ready?"

Jack nodded, following Bobby down the tunnel at a run on the old man's heels. The flares had percussion detonators, he remembered, hearing Rufus' voice in his head. _Bang 'em hard on the floor, just once, and throw 'em_. He gripped in the flare in one hand, the blade in the other and followed the bouncing flashlight beam and the moving shadow through the twists and turns of the narrow passage.

* * *

Sam started running when he heard the noise – screams and snarls and guttural roars – all echoing insanely from an enclosed space somewhere up ahead. Beside him, he could hear the pounding of Peter's boots against the smooth concrete floor, from behind, the rasp of Rufus' breaths and footfalls of Joseph. No matter what, he told himself, he would not let Dean see anything in his face except his love, his loyalty. Like a mantra, or a prayer, the thought looped through his mind in time with his steps.

He burst through into a much larger space, his flashlight swinging wildly around, seeing blood and bodies everywhere. Then there was a double-whoompf and light exploded into the room, burning brilliantly and instantly bleeding every colour from the scene as the flare hit the centre.

Twisting away, he threw his arm over his eyes, feeling the spreading heat the flare was generating against his skin, hearing the screams of the fangs in there, unable to tell if one of those screams belonged to his brother.

Bobby and Jack strode into the room after the flares, flash glasses darkened to black. Dean was hunched over near the centre of the room and Bobby ran to him, dragging him away from the flare and thrusting him into the tunnel.

"Which one?" he yelled at him, hand gripping one shoulder tightly. "Which one turned you?"

Dean couldn't see, the light piercing even through his tightly closed eyelids and the arm he held in front of them. He heard the voice beside him, recognition slowly penetrating of who it was and shook his head. The damned flare was cooking him and he turned further away from it, dropping to his knees and hunching up against it.

Looking back into the room, Bobby could see one vamp still moving and still with its head. He had the feeling that Dean would leave the vampire who'd turned him to the last.

"The one still alive, Dean?"

Dean nodded as he fought against the sudden grip of blood-lust, his jaw clenched against the smell of the old hunter, against the sound of his blood, rushing through his veins, his heart, beating steadily in his chest. He pressed himself against the wall of the tunnel, feeling the fangs begin to descend as the hunger wrestled for control.

"Jack!" Bobby turned from him and shouted to the trainee, pointing to the vamp kneeling and covering his face against the flare's burning brilliance. Jack nodded and they walked to either side, Bobby gripping the wide-mouthed screw-cap bottle in his pocket as Jack swung the machete and the vampire's head toppled onto the floor.

Bobby dropped beside the body, tipping it forward as he got the neck of the bottle under the cold flow of blood. He had no idea how much was needed, but he didn't want to hear he hadn't gotten enough when they got back to Kansas. He'd told Ellen they'd be pushing after her, and he'd meant it. In the brilliant light of the flares, he'd seen Dean flinch from him, muscles tightening as he'd turned away. He didn't know how long Dean would be able to control the need for blood.

The light began to dim finally, the flares burning against the bodies they'd fallen on, scorching and charring the fabric of the clothing. From the other tunnel, Sam slowly turned around, blinking rapidly at the sight in front of him, Bobby kneeling beside the dead vamp and catching its blood, Jack standing behind him, watching the corpses for any sign of movement.

"What the hell, Bobby?" he said, straightening up and stepping into the room.

Looking up, Bobby grinned through the dirt and blood and fine ash that coated his face.

"Jerome came through, Sam," he said, screwing on the cap tightly and getting to his feet. "They found a cure."

"What?" Sam stared at him as hope and disbelief wrestled.

Bobby shook his head, pushing the glasses up off his face as he turned to the tunnel.

"You didn't feed, Dean?" Bobby asked. Dean shook his head, unwilling to trust his voice, afraid it would be raw with the need that thundered up and down him.

"Good. Jerome said the cure's good but only if the fledgling hasn't fed."

"Bobby, you serious?" Sam hurried up behind him, Joseph, Peter and Rufus on his heels.

"No lie," Bobby told him. "But we gotta get moving. How many do you think are left?"

"I don't know," Sam said, looking for his brother. "We took out nearly twenty in the first attack, another four on our way through, and Dean killed fifteen, not counting what's here." He looked at the bodies on the floor, becoming less and less visible as the flare's light faded.

"Twenty two," Dean confirmed, his voice deep and thick. "Here."

"We took out another five on the way in," Bobby said, glancing at Jack who nodded his confirmation.

"That's over sixty," Rufus said.

"We'll follow the original plan," Peter added. "Burn this place to the ground and see if anything comes out."

"We gotta get going," Bobby said again. "We won't have time to sit around and wait for stragglers."

"No," Sam agreed, glancing at Rufus and Peter. "You stay, with Joseph and Jack. Burn it out. Bobby and me and Danielle and Lee'll head back to Kansas."

"Sounds like a plan," Rufus said, looking down at Dean worriedly. He could see the deep, shuddering breaths shaking the man, Dean's hands curled tight into white-knuckled fists.

Sam walked to the tunnel mouth and gripped his brother's arm. "Come on, we can do this, we can fix it, Dean. You'll see."

Half-listening to the conversation going on behind him as he'd fought against the smells of blood that surrounded him, against the ravenous need that flooded through him, Dean looked up at him, his face expressionless but his eyes wide with a mixture of incredulity and hope.

"You sure about this, Bobby?" he asked, straightening slowly as Sam pulled him up, his control over the hunger paper-thin but there finally.

"Hundred percent," Bobby said. "Wouldn't be here if I wasn't. Go!"

The four hunters, four trainees and vampire moved in a tight group back up the tunnel.

* * *

They were too loud.

Their voices. Their blood, roaring through them. Their footsteps. The clang of their weapons. The beat of their hearts. The flashlight beams shining over the tunnel walls and floors and ceilings were too bright and Dean walked between Sam and Bobby with his head down, eyes slitted against the light. Instead of a heartbeat, the hunger pulsed in him in the same rhythm as his footsteps. Their smell. Their sweat. Their blood … all of it crowded into his brain and he staggered a little as he walked, fighting off the sudden and shocking urges to turn left or right, rip into the throats that were too close, too enticing, and drain the bodies of blood, stop the agony that filled him. It was like holding onto a vicious animal, trying to anticipate, to block the violent twitches.

As they came out into the mall's main floor, the sky was lightening and Dean lifted his arm again, covering his face.

"Dean," Sam said quietly beside him. He let his arm drop a little, looking under it through half-closed eyes at Sam.

"How do you feel?"

The snort came out automatically, a part of the real him. "Like I might simultaneously burst into flames and implode," he told his brother sourly. "Not good."

"I meant … is it bad yet?" Sam winced at his brother's description.

"It's been bad for hours, Sam." He rubbed a hand over his face restlessly. He could see in his brother's eyes how bad it looked, how bad he looked. He felt like hammered crap, and it wasn't going to improve over the seven or eight hour drive back to Kansas. He was turning into a monster and his instinctive reaction was to hide, to let no one see him. That wasn't going to be possible. And maybe it wouldn't matter if the cure didn't work. But whichever way it went, he didn't want Alex to see him like this, didn't want to see in her eyes what he could see in his brother's.

"Listen, when we get back to the keep, make sure that Alex doesn't see me, okay?"

"Why?" Sam looked at him, brow creasing. "She won't be –"

"I don't want this memory locked in her brain," Dean snapped abruptly. "Just – humour me – alright?"

"Yeah, alright," Sam said, his gaze shifting slightly past him.

"Danielle," Bobby said quietly from behind them, and Dean turned to look around. The dart hit him in the side of his chest, just under the collarbone and he looked at the tall redhead. A second dart struck his shoulder, piercing the muscle through the cloth of his shirts. The dead man's blood flowed sluggishly into him and he swayed as he felt the confusion in his mind, his senses dulling, the extraordinary connection between body and brain dissolving and disappearing.

"Catch him," Peter said sharply, and Sam stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Dean's chest as his brother's knees buckled and he started to drop.

"Alright, we got him," Rufus said, taking his legs and lifting. Peter gripped one arm, pulling out the dart and tossing it back to Lee as Sam lifted the other arm over his head and pulled it around his shoulder.

"We'll take you back to your cars," Bobby said to Rufus, looking around the dim interior. "Then we'll go."

"This won't take long," Rufus said, following Sam and Peter out through the glassless doorframes.

Getting Dean's dead weight into the back of the pickup took a few minutes, and Danielle climbed in with him, unrolling the four-pack of syringes slotted into the small cloth pouch and shifting his head to her lap.

"Don't wait for him to wake up," Bobby warned her. She looked at him and nodded.

"I won't."

Sam got into the driver's seat and Lee settled himself in the middle as Bobby climbed in and shut the door. Peter, Rufus, Joseph and Jack climbed into the tray and Bobby pulled away from the building.

* * *

_**KS 23, Kansas**_

"How's he doing?" Sam looked in the rearview mirror at the girl in the back.

"Still out, breathing steadily," Danielle said, looking down at Dean.

Sam flicked a quick glance at Bobby. "I can't believe there's a cure. Why didn't we know about it?"

"Shit, Sam, there's a helluva lot of things we don't know about," Bobby said with a shrug. "Couldn't get through too easily on the radio, so we didn't hear much about it. Just that it needed the blood of the vamp that turned him, and if he'd fed, it wouldn't work."

Sam swallowed uncomfortably. He couldn't have killed Dean. Someone else would've had to. And he wouldn't've been able to live with that either. He understood, now, the burden their father had placed on his brother before he'd died. Understood, now, what Dean had meant when he'd said that those words had been screaming in his head. Understood why his brother hadn't been able to take the gun or pull the trigger when Meg had been using him, possessing him, and trying to drive Dean into killing him.

Bobby looked across at him, seeing the tension in the set of his shoulders. "We'll get him back, son."

Sam nodded, his hands tightening on the wheel as he stared at the road rolling on ahead.

"Yeah."

* * *

_**Lebanon, Kansas**_

"No, he has to sit up to drink this," Merrin said, scowling at the men as they carried Dean into the small examination room. "Can't you restrain him, when he comes to?"

Sam looked at Bobby, who rolled his eyes. "Not really, not if the hunger is deep."

"I'll get the 'cuffs," Ellen said, as they manoeuvred Dean into the wide chair.

On the countertop, Oliver hovered by the ingredients of the cure. "Where's the blood?"

Bobby handed him the bottle and he took it, unscrewing the cap and pouring half into a glass measuring jug.

"What's in it?" Bobby asked, his fear for Dean momentarily diverted by the need to know about the cure, to file away the information for the future, as he walked up behind him. Oliver tapped the book beside him without answering, concentrating on what he was doing. Bobby read the list of ingredients in the cure, brows rising.

_Hypericum perforatum, taurine (C__2__H__7__NO__3__S), Verbena officinalis, carnitine (C__7__H__15__NO__3__), Crataegus monogyna, silver nitrate (AgNO__3__), iron oxide (Fe__2__O__3__nH__2__O), Sorbus aucuparia, Allium sativum, Digitalis purpurea, Symphytum officinale. Blood of the infecting vampire._

"An' this works?" he asked Oliver, watching as he burned the twigs of hawthorn in a small metal dish.

"Yes, it's surprisingly scientific actually, considering it was developed in the early sixteen hundreds," Oliver said absently as he scooped the ash from the bowl and added it to the jug. "The maker's blood is required to key the other ingredients to the correct cells that must be removed. The verbena and the hawthorn then act on the vampiric blood, neutralising it in the body at the same time as the silver breaks the connections to the mind – and that's an oddity, although silver is antibacterial and perhaps the mental effect of the disease is more related to that than a viral infection." He shrugged, tipping a small amount of a greenish liquid into the mix. "The taurine draws the blood back, along with the garlic, which although it has no real effect on a vampire, has an extraordinary pull on the creature's blood, drawing it out like a poison or more to the point, like an infection."

He crushed the rowan berries and the finely chopped verbena foliage together and tipped the mix into the jug. "The rowan berries must be cooked, raw they are bitter and rather poisonous to our systems. But cooked the parasorbic acid is transformed to sorbic, which is a preservative. It acts in reverse on the petrification of the body cells affected by the vampire blood, returning them to living cells and undoing the effects. Not sure why, but an analysis of the actual viral properties of the disease might explain that."

Bobby looked at the mixture in the jug, already turned from red to black. He leaned over it and sniffed cautiously, drawing back sharply at the acrid, pungent scent.

"Doesn't smell too good," Oliver agreed, flicking a glance at him. "Probably tastes worse." He scraped the small pile of fine red powder from the board into it. "The iron strengthens the victim's blood during the drawing process, separating the cells from the vampire's, and the digitalis, carnitine and comfrey are present to start the heart beating again, prevent arrhythmia and strengthen the body."

"Huh."

Oliver glanced at him and smiled dryly. "The Campbells experimented with this in 1617 or before, Bobby. It's an amazing use of what they had available at the time."

Ellen came in and passed two pairs of handcuffs to Sam, locking the other pair around Dean's left wrist and the arm of the chair, crouching to lock the second set around his ankles to the chair leg.

She got up and looked at Merrin. "Will we have any warning when he starts to come to?"

The nurse walked over to the chair, resting her fingertips against his forehead. "He's burning up," she said, glancing at Dr Sui. "He was cooler ten minutes ago."

"The virus is still working its way through him," Kim said worriedly. "I don't think we have any way to tell if he's awake or not, aside from observation. I haven't set up the new EEG yet."

Ellen nodded, turning to Oliver. "Is that ready?"

"Almost," Oliver said shortly. He picked up a small bottle of clear liquid and an eye-dropper, filling the dropper and adding six drops to the cure.

"Does he have to drink all of that?" Bobby stared at the jug. It contained almost two pints of fluid.

Oliver picked up the small stick blender and put it into the jug, pulsing the mixture until he was sure that all the ingredients were completely combined. "Yes. The measurements are precise. If he's not capable of controlling himself, we'll have to insert a stomach tube."

"What happens after he's taken it?" Ellen looked at him and back at the unconscious man in the chair.

"The book doesn't specify that," Oliver admitted. "The whole thing is designed to draw out the blood from his body, so I'm guessing regurgitation."

"That'll be fun," Bobby commented. "Where's the bucket?"

* * *

Alex ran down the staircase, skidding as she turned the corner at the bottom, her bare feet slapping against the stone floor. She saw Ellen at the door to Kim's rooms and slowed, looking past her.

"Is Dean in there?"

"Alex, now might not be the best time," Ellen said, shifting to block the doorway. She was here because Sam had told her to let no one else in.

"What the hell are you talking about, Ellen?" Alex snapped at her, moving back the other way and staring at her as she moved as well. "Let me through!"

"Wait a minute, okay? Just one second –" Ellen put her hand out, turning to the short hall behind her that led into the room. "Bobby, Alex is here –"

Sam walked to the doorway. He looked at Ellen and past her to Alex.

"Not yet, Alex," he said quietly.

"What is wrong with you?" she said, pushing past Ellen and angling to get past Sam. "I –"

* * *

The transition from unconsciousness to awareness was shockingly abrupt. Dean flinched back against the chair at the screaming, high-pitched sound that had catapulted him into consciousness, his hearing overwhelmed by the cacophony of other noise that lay beneath it, jumbled and deafening. He opened his eyes and shut them again, the brilliance of the overhead fluorescents blinding him instantly, the blurred impression of white and colour in the second's glimpse unresolvable.

"He's awake."

The voice rolled like thunder, filling his head as the high-pitched sound ceased, echoing oddly from the hard, slick surfaces in the room. He could hear rushing. Pounding. A clanging noise. Deeper booming in a number of rhythms. Scratching. The too-loud noises and too-bright lights and the overwhelming scent of living blood in the room goaded the voracious hunger, shredding his organs with its ravening teeth, his veins burning, the caustic insistence of the vampire's blood filling and spreading through every cell.

He could feel the thrum in his chest, the vibrations in his throat but he didn't realise the deep, wild-animal keening he could hear was coming from him, whistling out between his teeth as he tensed every muscle against the conflagration inside his body.

* * *

Sam gripped her arms and pushed her back to the door. "No. Dean was clear, he doesn't want you in there," he said tightly. "Just wait."

The words hit her like a slap and she took a step back from him. "Why?"

"He doesn't want you to see him like this, okay?" Sam said, looking at Ellen. "He's not – it's not all him."

"Alex, listen to him," Ellen said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her back.

"He said that?" Alex ignored Ellen and looked at Sam.

* * *

"Do something!" Bobby yelled at Kim as Dean's head tipped back and his fingers curled around the arms of the chair, muscles rigidly contracted and tendon and sinew standing out with the pain. His lips were drawn back and they could see the fangs, long and bristling, fully descended over the human teeth. The sound forced out of him was primal agony and under it, they could hear the creak of the hardened steel handcuffs, could see the links of the chains connecting them stretching slowly.

"Christ, he'll be out of those in a minute," Bobby said, striding across the room. "Sam! Get your ass in here and help me hold him." He walked behind the chair, wrapping his arms around Dean's head. "Kim, get that tube ready to go, we'll have seconds to get this into him."

Sam looked at Alex and turned abruptly, walking fast back into the room. She felt Ellen's hand tighten on her shoulder and she swung around, breaking the hold and following Sam in, hearing the low snarl, her eyes immediately finding the source.

Half-hidden behind his brother and Bobby and Kim, she watched Dean as he fought the restraints and the hands that gripped his shoulders, head and neck, saw his lips draw back from a mass of gleaming, pointed fangs that filled his mouth, his skin smooth and pale and hard, the pale freckles over his nose and cheeks standing out against the lack of colour underneath, every muscle contracted and rigid.

Kim nodded and took the lubricated end of the tube from Merrin, stepping reluctantly to the chair as Sam took the other side.

"Oliver, bring it," Bobby snarled, his eyes on the lengthening links. "NOW!"

Oliver grabbed the jug and half-ran to Kim. She looked at Bobby anxiously. "I have to do this slowly, make sure I don't get the trachea!"

"Just do it. We'll hold him still."

Kim lifted the tube as Alex ran to them, dropping in front of Dean, her hand flashing out to grip his. His eyes flew open, blood-red and almost pupilless as he stared at her. She could see the mixture of rage and fear in them, his face unfamiliar, features twisted into a savage mask. Her pulse accelerated and she ignored the shiver that ran through her. Behind the animalistic fury he was in there, she told herself, he was still in there and still himself.

"Dean, come on, fight," she said, leaning closer, her fingers tightening hard around his. "Come back."

He lunged toward her, almost breaking Bobby and Sam's hold on him, pulling them forward and flicking them back, rocking the chair. The soft whine of the stressed metal of the handcuffs could hardly be heard but Bobby's eyes were fixed on the chain links as they stretched out a little further.

"Alex, get away from him!" Sam yelled at her, struggling to hold his brother's shoulders as Kim looked at Bobby, fighting against the vampire strength to pull his head back again.

Alex ignored him, teeth snapping together as she forced herself not to flinch backward, staring into the carnelian irises. She saw his expression flicker, saw him blink rapidly.

"No, he can do this," she said sharply to Sam, raising her voice to be heard over the deep growl coming from the man in front of her, her gaze fixed on Dean's face. "You can, you can beat it."

She didn't realise she was holding her breath as she watched his eyes slowly focus on her, watched the red film across the whites thin out and his pupils expand, his face smooth out and the growling noise stop. The rigidity vanished and he slumped back in the chair, the cuff chains clinking against each other. Bobby looked at Sam, loosening his hold.

"Dean?"

Dean's eyes were almost closed as he tilted his head to one side to look at his brother. The room stank of blood, thick and red. He felt his mouth fill with saliva at the smell and swallowed hard.

"Stop yelling at me, Sam," he said softly.

"You got it?"

"For now," Dean said, exhaustion riddling his voice. "Comes and goes, but it's getting stronger. We gotta do this."

He looked down at Alex, kneeling in front of him. "I told Sam not to let you in," he said, his voice hoarse.

"He passed along the message," she told him, getting to her feet and moving to the side of the chair as Kim took the jug from Oliver. "I ignored it."

"Dean, you ready?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah," he said, looking at the glass jug warily, nose wrinkling up as he caught the odour. "All of it?"

Oliver nodded. "My advice would be to drink it as fast as you can."

The hunger was barely leashed; Dean could feel it building up again. He nodded abruptly and Kim brought the jug to his lips, tipping it up as he lifted his head. _Tasted worse than it smelled, worse than the black crap Ruby had poured down his throat_. The thought flashed through his mind as he swallowed the steady flow as fast as he could.

Kim pulled back as the last mouthful emptied the jug, looking at him. The fangs had withdrawn, his irises were still a deep red, the whites tinged with blood, his skin was hard-looking, the bones standing out under it, sharp and angular.

Dean looked around at Oliver. "Is that i–?"

The convulsion struck violently and without warning, and Kim skittered aside as the stream of blood and bile arced from Dean's mouth onto the floor in front of him, his body clenched tight as the cure pulled the vampire blood from every cell and vein and capillary, filling his stomach and being ejected again.

"Get the cuffs off!" Merrin ordered, catching his head and wiping the bloody mess from his mouth as he seized again, eyes rolling back into his head, bone-deep shudders rattling through him. "Get him on the floor!"

Falling to his hands and knees when he was released, Dean dropped onto his side, the blood continuing to be ejected from his stomach, each drop leaving a trail of corrosive agony along the blood paths.

Alex knelt behind him, sliding an arm under his neck and shoulder, talking to him softly and holding him tightly against the spasms that shook through him, his body curled inward around the pain. His skin was hot and paper dry under her hands, and she looked around to Kim.

"He's burning up here."

"Is it working?" Bobby asked, his voice barely a whisper as Merrin passed Alex a cloth soaked in water and she pressed it against his forehead and throat.

"It seems to be," Oliver answered him. "The blood is definitely being withdrawn. The process would be excruciating, of course."

Sam glared at him. "Is there anything we can do?"

"No," Kim said. "The process isn't static. Once the blood is gone, he'll be exhausted, both from this – procedure – and whatever it was he's gone through before. Then we can do something, but right now, I can't give him anything – I wouldn't know what to give him – in case it counteracts what he's taken."

* * *

Deaf. Blind. Paralysed.

Dean lay on his back, his eyes open but unable to make out more than shapes in the dim room.

Kim had told him, when the blood had finally gone completely from his system and he'd returned to the world, that it would take some time to get used to having the normal range of his senses again, and probably a couple of weeks for his body to recover from the punishment it'd taken, super-charged when he'd gone through the nest like a killing machine, everything pushed far past the normal limits.

He felt a hand curling around his and looked down, seeing the shape of Alex as she sat down in the chair beside the bed.

"Good times, huh?" he said, his voice cracked and raw.

"Better than Disneyland," she agreed softly. "You want some water?"

"Yeah." His mouth and throat felt like a desert. Vocal chords had probably taken a beating with all the Wild Kingdom noises he'd been making, he thought, but the cure was dehydrating as well.

She came back to the bed with a glass and a straw, holding it as he sucked the cold water down.

"More?"

He shook his head. "No."

He waited until she'd put the glass on the nightstand and returned to the chair before he looked uncomfortably at her, squinting a little as he tried to get his eyes to focus. "Guess there's no chance of you forgetting that."

She slid her hand under his, fingers closing his hand, and he heard the smile in her voice. "No, but that's okay."

"How is that okay?"

"Because being kept out of it, being kept away, would've been worse," she said gently, looking at his expression. "You don't really get it, do you?"

"Get what?" he asked warily. He hadn't wanted her to see him as a monster. Hadn't wanted that memory to be there when she looked at him. Or in her dreams. He had enough bad dreams for the both of them.

"It's okay that it's not all rainbows and sunshine, Dean." He felt her lift his hand, felt her smooth skin against the back of it as she held it against her cheek. "It's still you, still –"

He heard her take in a deep breath and let it out. "There isn't anything in you, or about you, that I would change."

Dean felt his breath catch at that. There were a million things he'd change, if he could.

"Every scar, every choice, everything you've thought and felt and done," she continued, feeling for the words to describe what she felt to him. "All of it was essential to make who you are, right now, right this minute."

"I might –" he started to say and stopped to clear the thickness in his throat. "I might have been better without a lot of that stuff."

"No. Different maybe, but not better," she said, with a certainty that shook him.

"You don't know that."

"I know it for me."

"You'd rather have a head-case than someone without all the scars –?"

"I'd rather have you, the way you are," she cut him off, her fingers tightening on his.

He didn't know what to say to that. Something, so far down he wasn't even sure where it was, loosened at the words, unwound, a little. Some fear that he hadn't looked at in a long, long time. Hadn't acknowledged. He closed his eyes, returning the pressure on her fingers.

"Oliver gave me a paste for you that's supposed to help with all the wear and tear," Alex said, after a moment. "Feel like a massage?"

He coughed slightly. "Full service?"

She snorted, swallowing the laugh. "If you're up to it."

He smiled and opened his eyes, still not seeing her too well, able to make out the gleam of her smile.

* * *

Adam sat on the bank of the river, hidden by the sweeping canopy of the willows that lined the edge, staring sightlessly at the gleam and sparkle of the water as it hurried past.

No one had said anything. They hadn't needed to, he thought bleakly. It was in their faces when they didn't look at him. In the silence that fell when he came into a room. In the chill blankness when he managed to catch someone's eye.

He couldn't explain what had happened, not exactly. He'd frozen, seeing the vampires rising up around Dean. For the first time, it hadn't been taking shots at a distance, or hearing about it, or reading about it, but surrounded by it – the brilliance of the blood that had dripped from the long teeth, the overpowering stench of rotted flowers and rotten meat that had choked him as they'd closed in, the unbelievable strength and speed and – and – and _other_ness of them.

Monsters.

_Real. _

He hadn't been able to process that thought at all until they'd dragged his brother down and vanished with him.

There was a soft snap behind him and his head snapped around, seeing Christine ducking as she came in between the long, delicate branches.

"Hey," she said, dropping cross-legged beside him.

"Hey," he returned, cautiously. She looked at the river, absently plucking a grass stalk and stripping the seeds from the end.

"You're taking this too hard, you know," she said, turning her head to look at him. "Nobody blames you for what happened."

He snorted, looking at the water. "Sure. Right."

"They don't," Chris insisted. "Rufus said it was a good lesson for everyone, that it's easy to freeze up in the moment and we all had to work on getting through that."

Adam's mouth twisted up. "Funny, he didn't say that to me."

Her brow lifted. "What'd he say?"

Adam ducked his head, the memory still stinging. "He said that until I learn to take it seriously, I'll be training with the keep guards and Franklin."

"What?"

He glanced at her, trying to gauge the genuineness of her reaction. She seemed sincere, the sky-blue eyes wide with surprise. There was a not-so-subtle hierarchy between the civilian guards and the hunters, nowhere more evident than in the trainees of both groups. The hunters considered themselves elite, the guards considered themselves professional. That neither Franklin or Rufus paid any attention to it didn't seem to bother anyone. But he knew she saw the move as a demotion, a severe one.

"It's okay," he said, relaxing a little. "I screwed up. I deserve it."

"It could've happened to any–"

"But it didn't, Chris," he cut in. "It happened to me." He turned away from her. "And it happened because I haven't been looking at this stuff the way I should've been."

"Come on, Adam," she said, shaking her head. "Everyone knows that of all of us, you've seen the least of what's been going on the last three years."

He smiled humourlessly. "Yeah, angel condom."

She frowned at the term. Someone had overheard one of the older hunters use the phrase, and it'd spread around quickly. She'd ignored it, thinking it was fairly typical of the maturity of the young men in both the keep garrison and the hunters enclave.

"That was hardly your fault," she said.

Adam sighed, leaning back. "No," he agreed. "Doesn't matter."

"Look, I can talk to Rufus – or Dean –"

"No!" He sat up fast, looking at her in alarm. "Don't."

Recoiling a little at his vehemence, Christine shook her head. "Why not?"

"Because I told you, it's okay," he said shortly. "Franklin's tough but fair. And I don't – I need some time to figure this stuff out. So … don't, okay?"

"Okay," she said, shrugging a shoulder. "Doesn't mean you can't hang with us, you know that, right?"

He wasn't sure he wanted to. Wasn't sure he could deal with that, quite yet. "In a while, sure."

"Adam," she said, rolling onto one knee and stopping.

"Yeah."

"They're your brothers. You should talk to them," she said quietly.

He shook his head. "I don't think they're acknowledging that relationship any more, Chris."

She bit her lip, looking at his bowed head. He'd been difficult when he'd first gotten here, arrogant, to hide his fear, she'd thought. Renee had told her a little about him, and she'd found it hard to believe that he was functioning at all after what he'd been through. He might've frozen up in combat, but any one of them might've done it as well. His relationship to the Winchesters couldn't have helped any.

Getting to her feet, she slapped a friendly hand on his shoulder and turned away, ducking under the willow fronds and walking back up through the fields.

Adam looked up and watched her go. He wasn't sure if the offer of friendship was such a good idea. He didn't think he could face them now. Fitting in with the keep garrison was hard enough.

Dean was still recovering and he'd avoided Sam whenever possible, breathing a sigh of relief when the tall hunter had returned to order's safehold once he was sure his brother was on the mend. The memory of Sam's face, when they'd been in the tunnel, was one he couldn't shake free. He didn't think there was much chance of getting to know his half-brothers now.

* * *

_**Two weeks later.**_

Dean walked stiffly into the order's library. The healing ointment Oliver had given Alex was doing wonders, and he could move around without pain now. Kim had been astonished by the rapidity of his recovery, in fact. Another week or so and the stiffness would be gone, he thought. It was gradually working out with exercise. His vision had returned to what it had been and he was getting used to it. His hearing and sense of smell were normal again as well, although he found himself listening in the night, trying to stretch out his senses further.

He looked around the long table as he took the empty chair at the end. Bobby, Ellen, Rufus, Franklin, Boze, Jerome, Peter, Vince, Jasper, Katherine and Davis were seated already, Alex moving to the side to stand with Sam, Maurice and Father Emilio.

"Well?" Bobby looked at him dourly. "What's the good news?"

"Not much on the good news," Dean said slowly. "The, uh, vision I had … it wasn't so much as a vision as more of a 'welcome to the group' promo."

Ellen arched an eyebrow. "And what's that mean?"

"Like a quick-view history lesson," Dean said, shrugging. "And something else, the plans for the future."

The memories of those images were strong and vivid, and he told them what he'd seen in as much detail as he could. The room was silent when he'd finished.

"The dark-haired woman you saw could be Nintu," Katherine said, looking at Jerome. "She was supposed to be the dark side of Creation."

Ackers nodded sharply. "Those were the oldest legends."

"Who's Nintu again?" Bobby looked from Jerome to Katherine. "For the unwashed masses?"

Jerome sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Ninhursag and Nintu, twin sisters of Creation. Ninhursag is the Sumerian name for the mother goddess, the earth goddess, but she's much older than that."

"The two goddesses created all life on Earth," Katherine stepped in impatiently. "Ninhursag made the animals, trees, life in general – natural life, her sister created the creatures that weren't natural, livings forms of evil, the things that go bump in the night."

"Huh," Bobby said, looking back at Jerome. "And this Nintu, she's the one we've got to thank for werewolves and vampires and such?"

Jerome scratched his brow as he nodded. "Yes. But the two goddesses were locked away, in a mountain, their prison sealed, according to the legend." He looked at Katherine, seeing her nod.

"Supposedly," she agreed, somewhat dryly. "In Peru."

"That's all fascinating," Dean said abruptly. "What's it got to do with the vampires?"

"Nintu brought forth vampires and werewolves – every unnatural creature – from her womb," Katherine told him. "She was their mother, as Ninhursag birthed humankind."

Felix cleared his throat, looking around the table. "There is another legend, about Nintu."

Jerome gestured at him. "Well? What is it?"

"That the first children of Nintu were the most powerful, that they could create the species to populate the world. They were also supposed to have been imprisoned when the goddesses were, but in different locations."

"Are we speculating that someone or something released the sisters and now they're releasing their first-born?" Sam asked, looking from Felix to Katherine.

"Ah … I'd need the texts to get this absolutely correct, but yes, I suppose so. The origins of Usiku are quite broadly documented, in African mythology –"

Jasper nodded. "And Raat Bhedeiyaa Bhut was well-known throughout India."

Boze looked at them. "Who?"

"Usiku was supposed to be the first vampire, the one who created all the others. Raat Bhedeiyaa Bhut was the first werewolf, in Hindi lore, born of the goddess and a wolf to take the hearts of men and therefore, their courage in the night," Jerome explained, gesturing at the books behind him. "We have a large selection on the origins of the monsters, but the one thing they all have in common, no matter which country or culture they're from, is that they were all born of a dark goddess, who walked through the land and left evil in her footsteps."

Dean thought of the face he'd seen, dark-skinned and pale-eyed. Usiku. _Good to know_.

"How the hell are we supposed to find and take them down?" he asked Jerome.

"Well, more importantly," Jasper said, looking around the table. "Who let the goddess out?"

"Slow down," Bobby growled. "We've got not one, but probably two goddesses who were safely locked away, now wandering around, and one of 'em is letting loose her original monster kiddies who can make more of themselves –"

"Provided they can find a population source, yes," Jerome interjected. Bobby scowled at him.

"And this is why we're seeing the packs and nest numbers going up so fast?" he finished, glancing at Dean.

Jasper looked at Jerome, one brow raised. "That just about covers it, I think."

The hunters looked at each other in the silence that filled the room.

"Is it just me, or is anyone else feeling a tad fucking persecuted here?" Franklin said caustically, breaking the silence. "Didn't we just get back from saving the goddamned world?"

Bobby looked across the table to Dean, who gave him a tired shrug.

"Alright, what can we do about it?"

Peter looked at him. "In the vaults, under the Vatican, there is an extensive library. We need what they have. Every Church hunter was trained with those texts and they do cover the origins – and the rituals required to get rid of them."

Turning to Jerome, Dean asked, "Can the French hunters get there? In any time frame that'll do us any good?"

The scholar nodded. "They're already on their way. I don't know how long it will take them, Dean." He gestured to the library. "We have a lot of the ancient mythology here, we will begin with that and the other chapters will begin researching as well."

"Do we think this is connected in any way to the tablets of God?" Davis asked, leaning back in his chair as he looked at Jerome. "The timing is rather … coincidental … after six thousand years of no change."

"The timing is not coincidental," Father Emilio said abruptly, walking to the table. "Lucifer was destroyed – utterly. And Hell had no ruler. I suspect that these events are due to the fact that a new ruler has risen in the accursed plane and has been busy." He looked at Jerome. "There has been no response from the Tibetan chapter, has there?"

Jerome shook his head.

"Then it seems probable that they have been destroyed, and whatever it was that the Qaddiysh left there has been taken," the priest said.

"We can't verify that," Jerome said uneasily.

"Do you think that these events are unconnected, Jerome?" Father Emilio asked bluntly.

"No," the scholar admitted reluctantly.

Father Emilio turned to Dean. "Your brother told me that you can call on a angel?"

Dean nodded, his eyes rolling slightly. He should've thought of Cas himself. "Yeah, sometimes."

"It might be that the angel can tell us what has happened in Hell, what is happening in the world," the priest said tightly. "And it might be that he can help us to contact the Qaddiysh, yes?"

* * *

Dean stood on the flat roof of the Keep, looking at the stars that filled the clear night sky. Franklin was right, he thought. It did feel like fucking persecution. He pushed the thought aside and closed his eyes.

"Cas? Uh, Dean to Cas, you receiving? Need some help here," he muttered to himself.

The soft beat of wings was behind him, and he turned around, looking at the angel's vessel, trench coat hem lifting in the slight breeze.

The angel looked at him questioningly. "Why have you called me here, Dean?"

Dean wondered where to start. "Seems like killing Lucifer opened up a whole new can of worms," he said. "We're not the only ones looking for the way to shut down Hell, and we've got other problems on the side."


	4. Chapter 4 Highways and Byways

**Chapter 4 Highways and Byways**

* * *

_**October 2012, Limoux, France**_

Elena opened her eyes, looking around and straightening in her seat. "_Merde_, how long was I sleeping for?"

"Two hours," Luc said, glancing sideways at her. "Just passed through Limoux."

"Do you think Francois is right, Luc?" she asked, looking out at the countryside. "Will it be quicker to find a boat on the coast and sail there?"

"Safer, probably," the man said, with a shrug. "Faster depends on the weather, what kind of boat, fuel, the if-factor, _non_?"

She sighed. Before the world had ended with a crash, it would've been a twelve-hour drive from Lourdes to Rome. Now, that timeframe was elastic. Many of the major roads were either impassable or just gone, the earth movements and storms wiping them effectively. The smaller roads were as risky. They'd already run into two blockades, one manned by a nest of ghouls, living off the small town behind it, the other by a group of survivors who were far too nervous about the monsters that had emerged in the wreckage of their world to think of communicating with travellers. The vehicles were full of bullet holes that had been the sum total of their welcome.

"How far to the coast?"

"Fifty miles to Port-Au-Nouvelle," he told her, gesturing at the map that lay between them. "It was a shipping port, the steel ships should still be there, mostly intact."

She nodded, thinking it through. There would be diesel fuel. The big ports had quantities, held safe underground. It would cut almost a thousand kilometres from the land route, and as Luc had already pointed out, it would be safer. They could load what they needed on board, and use it as a base at the mouth of the Tiber, and the river would be a more stealthy way to get into the city.

"Let's go."

Luc turned south, and Elena watched in the mirror as the truck behind them made the turn. There were only six of them for this mission and it had cut their small force in half. She was not too worried about those who were staying behind to protect the chapter's safehold in the mountains – it would take an army, a _real_ army, to be able to break through the defences there, but it was of concern that they were so few here. The Americans had found many more to help keep the order safe, she thought, a little enviously. And they were training their young people. She wondered if any of the trainees had a yearning to see Europe. The thought brought an inward snort of derision. Over there and over here, the troubles were the same.

The radio crackled. "I see my suggestion is being adopted," Francois said, the delight clearly audible in his voice.

"_Oui_, Francois," she said dryly into the mike. "We bow down to your superior intelligence once again."

"I'm glad you've finally decided to acknowledge it, _chère_," he said. "Where are we going?"

"Port-Au-Nouvelle," she answered. "We'll be there in an hour, so get the others ready."

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Castiel looked around the office, noting the familiar faces and the new ones.

"We felt the leadership of Hell pass to a new King two months ago," he said, returning his gaze to Dean. "It did not go to the remaining Fallen."

"And what does that mean?" Bobby asked truculently. "Who did it go to?"

Cas shrugged. "We don't know."

"Alright," Dean said, looking at Bobby's bitter grimace. "Do you know what this new king has been doing?"

"The percussion of the demon tablet being unsealed was felt everywhere, every plane," Cas said readily. "And we perceived that many things were released at the same time."

"Released?" Ellen asked.

"Many things?" Peter said at the same time. "What things?"

"Things that had been locked away," Castiel said, looking at him.

"Helpful," Bobby said sarcastically. "You got details?"

"God did not create all life on earth," the angel said, turning to him. "He created forces that would do that work for Him. They were known in the past as the Mothers."

"Yeah, that bit we've figured out," Dean said, glancing at Katherine. "We need to know how to put them back in their cell."

Cas looked at him patiently. "You can't."

The men and women in the room looked at each other and Dean stared at the angel.

"Can't?"

"When they finished their tasks, God locked them away, Dean," Cas said. "They were never to be released again. They are pure creative forces. Only their creator can control them."

"These tablets, Castiel," Peter said, glancing at Dean and back to the angel. "The legend said that there were five of them?"

The angel looked away. "We have little more than legend to go on as well," he said slowly. "The Mattara – the Voice and Scribe of God – disappeared two thousand years ago. It was rumoured that he had completed a task for the protection of mankind. That's all I know of it."

"But the tablets were given to the Qaddiysh?" Jasper said softly, looking at him. "The legend says they were guardians of all knowledge to be passed to humanity."

"And whatever happened in Tibet, it seems likely that at least one of the tablets was hidden there, when Lucifer rose," Jerome added.

"We need your help, Cas," Dean said. "We need to find out what the hell is going on before we end up dead."

"I can take you to Tibet," Castiel said. "And to Jordan, to speak to the Watchers, but that is all, Dean. The conspiracy in Heaven has been more difficult to unravel than we thought and I am needed there. I'll return for you tomorrow evening. Does that give you enough time to prepare?"

Dean nodded and the room echoed softly with the rustle of wings as Castiel disappeared.

Dean glanced at Sam. "Who goes?"

"I do," Jasper said abruptly. "You need someone who knows what they're looking for."

Dean glanced at the man and nodded slowly. "Alright. Sam, Peter, you too."

Sam nodded. "What do we need?"

"The usual, I guess," Dean said, rubbing the heel of his hand against his brow. "Bobby, Ellen, you're on point here." He looked at the others. "Rufus, we need as many small teams as we can get out to find any survivors. If we can't get rid of those bitches, we can at least reduce the feedlot for their offspring."

"Jackson have any good ideas about towns and cities, Alex?" Rufus asked, turning to her.

"He thought people would have a better chance surviving along the plains because the farmland is rich but nowhere specific. It's mostly small towns, small cities, from Texas to South Dakota," she said, remembering the old farmer's advice. "In small groups, the survival rate might be good."

"Then we'll head north, and quarter the damned states until we find them," Rufus said.

* * *

_**Oklahoma**_

She walked unhurriedly, pale hair lifting and twisting out behind her. There was much that needed to be restored, fed with the energy that seeped from her as she moved. Perished or poisoned, the world was not as she had left it, filled with the deep well of life when she had been swept into the box and bound tightly with her sister.

There would be no rebinding. She could not feel the force of control that had governed her movement the last time. Instead the world called to her and she walked on.

The ground trembled as she passed over it and long-dormant seed awoke. Every form of life stirred restlessly, fur and feather and scale and skin quivering in the changed air, water, earth. Instinctive imperatives filled them, amplified and urgent, beating in their blood streams and predator forgot prey and prey forgot danger.

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon**_

Alex opened the windows to the warm night, breathing in the scents of the fields and woods to the west. The Indian summer had taken over the frigid, frost-laden days and nights two days ago, the high responsible moving south and east and a warm, southern wind pushing up the plains.

Standing in a t-shirt and jeans, Dean looked down at the thick, down-filled coat lying on the chair in front of him. "Just how cold do you think Tibet's gonna be?"

Turning around, Alex glanced at the coat. "Latitude, altitude, mid-fall … it'll be cold. How long do you think you'll be there?"

"No idea, not all that long," he frowned. "Jordan's not likely to be cold, is it?"

He had only the vaguest idea of where Jordan was. Somewhere in the Middle East, desert, sand.

"Desert's always cold at night," she supplied unhelpfully. "Wear something you don't mind throwing if it's not suitable."

"Yeah."

"Since when did you start caring about being warm or cold on a job?" she asked him quizzically, opening the other window.

There was a long silence and Alex glanced over her shoulder at him, seeing him looking down at the coat mulishly.

"Dean?"

He exhaled gustily, turning and looking at her. "Since being turbo-charged changed my tolerances, okay?" he admitted unwillingly. It'd had come as shock, affecting more than just if he was warm or cold. He'd asked Kim about it, in a roundabout way, and she'd told him that it was possible that the cure had thinned his blood, or damaged his circulation in some way. She thought it was likely to be temporary and he was hoping that it was.

"Oh … that's why –"

He scowled at the floor, picking up the coat and shoving it back in the closet, grabbing a couple of long-sleeved shirts and tossing them onto the chair. "Yeah, that's why!"

Turning at her soft snort, he stared at her belligerently. "So now it's funny?"

Alex smiled, walking to him. "No, it was just … unusual … that's all. I didn't think of the cold."

Looking at him, she slid her arms around him. "Not cold now?"

"No, but now I'm all –"

He felt the familiar flutter in his stomach as she reached up and her lips brushed over his, his argument forgotten as he pulled her close and felt a deep, lazy pulse spiral slowly up and out through him, catching at his breath and crackling through his nerves.

It was too easy for her, he thought groggily, and not for the first time as his senses swam and struggled amidst the barrage of sensation that flooded them, nervous system registering her hands on his skin as the kiss deepened, pulling him down.

On some level, he was aware that it wasn't all physical, this heat and arousal and reaching, tormenting ache, that he … _gave up? gave in? let go?_ … in a way he'd never even thought of allowing himself before because she knew - knew everything, the scars and the darkness and the fear and it hadn't changed the way she looked at him. He was only Dean with her, not son or brother or protector or guardian or … anything else. And physical intimacy had always been the way he'd tried to connect. With her, the closeness became something else. Something that stripped away every wall and barricade. Something that held him and breathed with him and wouldn't let him go.

The breeze from the windows sighed through the room, filled with the scents of earth and woods and water, a silken kiss over heated skin. Pressure and heat swallowed him and a jittery tremble sabotaged every attempt he made to regain some control, quicksilver fast and shockingly random. Opening his eyes and seeing her, abandoned to the pleasure they made between them – eyes unfocussed, hair and skin damp and glowing, lips parted – and blinking them shut because that sight was too fucking much, speeding the hot uncoiling and driving him, lashing him, deeper and faster, heart booming in his ears and the unbearable ache starting to shatter inside. No division, just a wild sea, soft, tight ripples and spasms that drew everything from him as he rocked helplessly deep inside her.

* * *

The breeze had died away and the room was warm and still. Dean heard the soft whisper of her breath, felt it against his skin. The tension that had gone completely was gradually seeping back into him, despite the languid heaviness in his body. He'd wanted to tell her but the words got caught, somewhere in his chest, rammed back down.

_Carved you. Changed you_. The voice whispered in his mind and his arms tightened around the woman in them involuntarily. No, that's a lie. _Demons lie_.

But sometimes, he knew, they didn't.

And the truth was he didn't know what to believe. He hadn't felt that crawling, itching presence for months now. The corrosive doubts rose only when he tried to tell her, tried to show her. Everything else, he knew what he was doing, knew what the right thing to do was. Not here.

_Outcast_. Forty years in the pit. She'd challenged that. But he didn't know what to believe. The memories were still there. Every detail. Every scream. _Unclean_. You were raised, Jerome had said. But what did that mean, exactly? Sins wiped away? All forgiven? It hadn't changed anything for him. Hadn't convinced him that anything had changed. _Unworthy_. He'd been prepared to be a partner to Lisa, a father … he hadn't considered himself unworthy then. Hadn't considered it because in some ways it hadn't been a gift, but a penance. No yearning ache. No wordless need. No unacknowledged feeling that he couldn't look at, couldn't admit to, couldn't face. Just … another responsibility to shoulder. And he could do that. He'd always been able to do that.

He lifted his hand, lightly pushing back the hair from her forehead, his fingertips slipping through the soft strands. This wasn't a responsibility he had to bear. It wasn't a duty. It wasn't even because he'd known she could keep him human, despite what he'd told Death. It was what he'd had and had lost and had been searching for ever since. But after all that he'd done, all that had been done to him, all that had happened … in the depths of his soul, he didn't really believe he would ever deserve to have it again.

* * *

_**St Elphege Monastery, Tibet**_

The blackness ended and he felt the jarring drop to the stone floor, shivering a little as the icy wind blew through the open arches and pierced his clothing easily. Tibet was fucking cold.

"What are we looking for?" Sam asked, looking around the open hall. The staining on the stone pavers caught his eye and he crossed to it, kneeling as he stared at the uneven rust-coloured patch.

"Any surviving members –" Dean said, looking at Cas.

"We need to see what is in the vaults," Jasper cut in, moving toward the interior door.

Castiel closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. "There's no one alive in here except us," he told Dean.

Peter followed Jasper out of the hall and Sam got to his feet, looking at his brother. "Whatever happened here, we missed it."

Dean nodded. "Come on, maybe we can salvage something from this."

Like the safehold in Kansas, the chapter's collection rooms were extensive. Level after level of books, artefacts, weapons and work and store rooms. Dean looked around as they passed through the rooms, wondering if it was possible to move this stuff from here.

"Cas, can you, uh, teleport all this stuff back to Kansas?" he asked as they descended a narrow stone stair, the centres worn deep, the roof sloping down too close for any of them to move upright.

"Yes," the angel said abruptly. "That might be the safest option to prevent … anyone else from accessing it."

Jasper lit a torch, lifting it from the simple metal sconce on the rough stone wall and holding it up as he walked into the long cavern. In the steady golden light, the destruction was easy to see.

Dean looked around at the emptied boxes and baskets and chests, books ripped to shreds, their pages scattered like leaf-fall over the floor, broken ceramics and glass sparkling in the torch-light, bags slit open and spilling their contents.

"Guess the tablet was in here," he said flatly.

"Yes," Jasper said, lowering himself stiffly beside a box that had been flipped over but was intact. "It would seem that way."

Dean and Sam found the bodies as Castiel moved through the levels with Peter and Jasper, transferring the chapter's library and collections back to Lebanon.

Fourteen, Dean counted, all of them monks. All of them with the tell-tale residue of sulphur. The demons had largely ignored the libraries, focussing on the sections where the ancient objects and artefacts had been stored. Like the safehold in Lebanon, those had been catalogued and numbered, and as he looked through them cursorily, he wondered why the demons had left them intact. Arrogance, or coming back for them? There was a lot of stuff here that had been specifically designed for war against demons. He looked up at Peter and Cas as they returned for another load.

"We taking it all?"

Peter shook his head. "It would take too long," he said regretfully. "We must hide what we cannot take, and hope that we will have another opportunity in the future to retrieve it."

"Hide it?" Dean looked at him doubtfully.

"Seal it in," Castiel said shortly.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Lebanon**_

Jerome and Davis stared around the rooms, filled to every corner now with the texts, books and crates of the Tibetan monastery.

"Tell the angel that he'll have to take some to the keeps," Davis said, edging around a pile. "We don't have room for any more here."

Jerome nodded as Aaron, Father Emilio and Oliver walked back into the library again, dragging their furniture trolleys, picking up another pile each to take to the lower levels. Castiel had told him that the monks had been killed, to the last one. If the demon had found out about the other chapters, they would be in danger as well. The monastery had been less well protected, partly because they had served another purpose and had always been available to people, partly because they'd believed themselves to be protected by their location, by the ruggedness of the terrain. It had been a terrible error.

He eased the wheelchair out of the maze of books and boxes and down the ramp, going to the computers. They needed more help to move the things Castiel was bringing and he needed to warn the other chapters to increase their protective walls.

* * *

_**Devil's Lake, North Dakota**_

The rustle of the leaves was deliberate, Rufus knew. As deliberate as the cocking of the gun next to his ear.

"Get up, friend, nice and easy," the low voice said behind him and he put down the binoculars slowly, keeping both hands visible as he rolled onto his back and looked up at the man standing there.

In camouflaged hunting gear, the tough, wiry frame was mostly hidden. The face was distinctive, bold features hollowed out by hunger and bright blue eyes under dark auburn brows, the wide mouth compressed now as he looked down.

"Elias?" Rufus frowned up at him. "That you?"

"Who's asking?" the man's brows drew together sharply, staring at Rufus, trying to see past the mottled green and grey paint to the face beneath. "Turner?"

"Hell, yeah," Rufus said, putting his hands down and shifting to a sitting position. "Must be over nine years, eh?"

"More like eleven," Elias said, lowering the barrel and extending a hand. Rufus took it. "What the hell are you doing here spying on me?"

"Looking for survivors," Rufus said, brushing the leaf matter from his clothes. "How'd you survive the locusts?"

"Found a cave system," he said, gesturing north. "A deep one and huddled there for about a week. Where are you located?"

"Kansas," Rufus said, turning to look down at the camp site in the valley below them. "How many have you got?"

"A hundred and fifty," Elias said, following his gaze. "Three of us looking after them, we've just been picking up a few here and there since the virus took off." He looked over the hunter. "You look … fed."

Rufus grinned, teeth bright against the mottled shades of paint over his skin. "Oh hell, you got no idea."

* * *

"How many?" Elias turned to look at him, coffee pot held halfway between the fire and the cup.

"Somewhere around six thousand, both states, now," Rufus repeated, waving his cup. He looked around the small camp. "We've got stock and grain and shelter, and around thirty hunters, more in training, Franklin – you meet Franklin?" he stopped to ask, one brow raised. Elias frowned in thought as he put the pot back on the fire.

"Rooney? Ex-Army, tough as boots?"

Rufus nodded. "Yep, he's got about sixty learning soldiering."

"How'd you get that set up with the –" Elias stopped, gesturing vaguely around at the woods surrounding. "Everything's been goin' on?"

"Had a good leader," Rufus said quietly, thinking that was an understatement. No one else could've done it, he knew. No one else that particular history, and raw determination, the odd charm and magnetic … something … to have drawn such a varied group and united them all. No one else he could think of could've killed the Horsemen – or befriended Death – or an angel – or any of the other things that feat had taken. "Dean Winchester."

Elias' brows rose thoughtfully. "Heard of him, John's boy, wasn't he? And his brother, Sam?"

"You meet John?"

"In '88, briefly. He and Geny Tasarov helped out my dad with a tsuakerag up in Yellowknife. Saved my dad's life," Elias said, staring at the fire. "They brought him back to our place. He didn't stay long, said he wanted to get back to his boys."

"You'd have been – what? Twenty? Twenty-one?" Rufus hazarded a guess.

"I was nineteen, pissed as that my dad hadn't let me go along," Elias said with a snort. "Until they got back and I saw them. I don't know how they made it home. Don't know how they managed to save my father. John had a set of claw wounds across his back like he'd been attacked by that cartoon character – Wolverine," he said, shaking his head.

"Determined," Rufus commented.

Elias shot him a look. "Yeah. And his son's like him?"

"Not much in the detail but yeah, same at the core. Determined," Rufus said, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "Doesn't care if anyone follows him or not, he just gets on with it – and of course, we do, follow him, I mean."

"Well, we'll join you," Elias said quietly. "Can't keep these people up here, woods are too big now, too many things in 'em." He gestured to the cabins on the other side of the camp. "I got Moses Johnson's girl here, and Herb Tucker."

"What happened to Moses?"

"Got into a fight with a bunch of demons," Elias said. "Getting some of these people clear. Didn't make it out."

Rufus nodded. A lot of hunters had failed to make it out of fights with demons. And other assorted creatures over the last three years. The weight of numbers had not been on their side.

"You heard of anyone else? Surviving?"

"I caught some chatter on the CB, months ago now," Elias said slowly, finishing his coffee and pouring the grounds out. "Thought it sounded like Nate and Toby, but I couldn't get 'em to hear me and it dropped out and I couldn't find them again."

"That's promising," Rufus said, looking at him. "Before or after Baal swept the country?"

"After," Elias said. "About a month after, that's why I kept looking for them."

"Well, you got help now, man," Rufus said, stretching up. "Plenty of it. If they've survived, we'll find 'em."

* * *

_**Tafilah, Jordan**_

The night sky above the cracked and dry rocky canyons was black, and ablaze with stars, great sweeps of light over it, so many stars that they weren't discernible individually. Dean looked down at the ground, dark but visible nonetheless, outlined in that faint white light. He shivered as the wind moaned softly through the canyon.

"Just down here," Castiel said, walking away from them and following the curve of the rock down to the canyon floor. Glancing at Sam, Dean walked after him, dragging the edges of his coat closer.

Behind them, Jasper and Peter looked around interestedly, Jasper's eyes narrowing as they came down to the sand floor of the ravine and followed its twists and turns into a narrow crevice. To their right, the tall cliffs had been smoothed and carved, into a facade of buildings, fantastical and towering and elegant.

"Is this Petra?" he asked the angel. Cas shook his head.

"No," he said shortly, walking to the largest of the fronts, with a broad stone terrace and wide, shallow steps leading up to it, the elaborate doorway half hidden in the shadows of the columned portico.

He laid his hands against the stone door and closed his eyes. After a moment the design lit up within the stone, and the edges began to glow a pale gold. Stepping back, Cas opened his eyes and the door opened.

Sam looked at the two men standing in the doorway. Both taller than him, by several inches, he thought, broad-shouldered, with long hair, drawn back from perfectly sculpted, masculine faces. The gradual recognition of what they were was a delayed shock.

_Angels_.

He drew in a deep breath. But not in vessels. The thought hit him a second later as he realised that no human had the precise symmetry of the two in front of him.

"Castiel," the man to the left said slowly, dark green eyes flicking over the men behind the angel. "Why are you here?"

"Araquiel, the Word is in danger," Cas said quietly. "The Demon tablet has already been found. By Hell."

The man on the right made a noise in his throat. "I told you we shouldn't have entrusted it to humans."

"There was no other place," Araquiel reminded him mildly, looking back at Cas. "Who are they?"

Cas turned and glanced back at the men standing on the stone terrace. "They are hunters and scholars. The unsealing of the tablet has affected the human survivors of Lucifer's rise, more so than Heaven or you."

"It will affect everything," the blond man snapped. "If the other tablets are found by the new ruler, then nothing can be done."

"Precisely," Cas agreed. "We need your help."

"Come inside," Araquiel stepped back from the threshold, gesturing impatiently at the other man.

Dean followed Cas into the high-ceilinged hall, looking around. Doorways, tall and wide stood to either side of the cavernous space, lit by flickering torches. The carvings continued around the interior, only a few pieces of furniture to soften the austere appearance.

"Araquiel, this is Dean and Sam Winchester," Cas said, turning as the Watcher closed the door behind them. "Peter Andante, of the Vatican. Jasper Moore, initiate of the Litteris Hominae."

Jasper raised a brow but said nothing, looking at the two men who had been angels as they nodded brusquely at the men.

"Araquiel and Gadriel, the _Irin We-Qadishin_, guardians, Watchers," he said to them by way of introduction, turning back to Araquiel. "Where are the others?"

"In the library," Araquiel said, gesturing at the doorway to the left. "We felt the breaking of the seal and have been searching for information on the Mothers."

"Where are the other tablets?" Cas asked as he followed the fallen through into a long hall.

"Hidden," Gadriel said shortly. "Safely, we hope."

"They will not remain hidden," Cas said. "Not if the demon who took over Hell understands that Lucifer's memories are implanted in the Throne."

"Lucifer knew nothing of where the tablets were hidden," Gadriel snapped at him.

"You don't know what Lucifer knew or did not know, Gadriel," Cas said reprovingly. "He had many spies throughout the world when he was locked away, and had many hiding places to take the things he found out about and stole." The angel shrugged. "And we must find those tablets before anyone else."

Dean saw the glance exchanged between the two Qaddiysh. They didn't look like they were all that inclined to help, he thought. He couldn't think of any way to compel their assistance either.

Araquiel stopped in front of a pair of enormous doors, beaten bronze and deeply embossed panels, depicting a pantheon of angels, wings outstretched. He pushed the doors open and walked inside.

The library made the one at Lebanon look like a second-hand bookstore, Dean thought as he followed Cas inside. The ceilings were fifty or sixty feet above them, galleries ringing the walls and the shelving extending from the graceful vault edges to the floor, all filled and packed and stuffed with books of every description, every age and type and size. Stacks protruded from the walls into the room, leaving only a long aisle in between the two sides, the richly-coloured soft rugs strewn down it covered by low tables, surrounded by cushions and covered in books and parchments and writing paraphernalia. He heard Jasper's low whistle from beside and silently agreed.

Around the tables, standing at the stacks, looking at the intrusion of angel and men, the Qaddiysh were dressed similarly to Araquiel and Gadriel, long robes of white, belted at the waist, long hair drawn back or loose, black and brown and blond and red. Their features were perfect, the eyes of many bright hues, vivid in the dark, milk-pale or tanned faces, their curiosity remote and short-lived as they turned back to what they'd been doing.

"What information have you found?" Castiel stood uncomfortably beside one of the tables.

"That the sisters can be returned to their prison."

Cas turned around as a man with long, white hair approached them, the hair shockingly bright against the smooth, ebony skin.

"Shamsiel," the angel said formally.

"Castiel, my brother," Shamsiel said, white teeth very bright as he grinned at Cas and enveloped him in a hug. "You really have spent too much time in Heaven."

"And you on earth," Cas said, stepping back and looking at him. "The look is very … striking."

Shamsiel shrugged slightly. "There's blending in … and then there's blending in. One wouldn't want to lose all of one's uniqueness."

"No, that would be a disaster," another of the Qaddiysh said dryly. "He's right, though, Castiel. The Mothers can be returned to the mountain."

"How?" Dean asked, looking from one to the other.

"Sit, we will eat and drink and talk," Shamsiel glanced at a tall woman standing by the stacks. She nodded and turned away as he dropped to the cushion on the floor. "You will repay our hospitality by being our guests."

Dean caught Cas' deep sigh as the angel flipped back his coat tail and sat cross-legged on a cushion by the table, turning and gesturing for them to do the same. The last time he'd sat at a table this low, he thought, had been in Lawrence. Surprisingly, the memory didn't bite. He didn't have time to examine that.

"God put the Mothers away," Cas said to the red-haired Qaddiysh who'd spoken in confirmation of Shamsiel's claim. "If there is another way, tell us now, Baraquiel."

"You are familiar with the legend of Pandora? The Greek myth?" Baraquiel asked, looked from the angel to the men.

"The source of the evils of the world, opened by Pandora who was sent to mankind in punishment for following Prometheus," Jasper said.

"Yes," the Qaddiysh smiled slightly. "The myth is somewhat fanciful. The box, however is real. And it is a trap device for the forces of creation that you need to capture."

"Real – in what sense?" Sam asked curiously.

"It is a box, about so big," Baraquiel said, holding his hands eighteen inches apart. "If it is opened in the vicinity of the Mothers, they will be drawn into it and returned to their prison in the mountain. It will become a doorway, however, so care must be taken that it cannot be opened again."

"Drawn into it?" Dean said.

"Yes." Baraquiel looked up as the tall woman brought a platter of food and set it in front of him. She was followed by several others. Sam's eyes narrowed as he saw that they were not as perfect as the Watchers. He waited until they'd gone.

"You have humans working for you?" he asked Shamsiel, his gaze on the doorway where the woman and the others had gone.

The Qaddiysh smiled. "Human? No, not entirely."

"They are nephilim, Sam," Cas said, turning to look at him. "The children of the Qaddiysh."

"And human women," Jasper added, reaching out for a pomegranate on the tray in front of him.

Dean watched the angel beside him twitch with discomfort and decided to keep his questions till later.

"So, where do we find this box?" he asked Baraquiel.

"Unfortunately, there are three possible locations for it," Baraquiel said, putting a selection of the food onto a plate. "We haven't narrowed it down further than that yet."

"And what are the three?" Peter asked.

"The palace of Cleopatra is a possibility," Shamsiel said, around a mouthful of bread and cheese.

"The underwater palace?" Jasper asked, glancing sideways at Peter.

"Yes, that one," Shamsiel said with a shrug. "Much was taken from Greece and ended up in Egypt. We lost track of the box after Alexander returned."

"There is an alternative legend that the box was carried by the first eater in the night to Africa, buried there so that it could not trap the Dark Mother," Gadriel said with a careless shrug.

"In Zimbabwe?" Peter looked at him. "Nineteen thousand people vanished and the city that was left in ruins?"

"Yes," Araquiel nodded.

"What about the third possibility?" Dean asked. Underwater palaces and African ruins were sounding a long way past his pay grade.

"Derweze."

The voice of the speaker was deep and much older than the rest of the Qaddiysh. Dean turned to see a man emerging from between the shelves, as tall and broad-shouldered as the others, dressed in the long white _tob_ belted at the hips with a leather sword-belt, the hilt double-handed and dark with sweat. His face was perfect, smooth, his eyes long and narrow and the amber-gold of a wolf's.

"The door to Hell?" Jasper asked, respect for the speaker keeping the derision as just an edge to the words.

The Qaddiysh smiled crookedly, a disarmingly boyish smile in the ancient, ageless face, as he looked at the professor. "The village was used sporadically, the Teke are still – were then – mostly nomadic. Before the mining company began to drill, there was a building there that none would enter. It was a tomb, buried deep in the ground, under the hill," he said, folding himself gracefully into a sitting position at the table. "Inside the tomb were more stairs. And they led deeper, far deeper than the exploration company drilled. At the bottom of the stairs, where the rock seemed to melt and reform, there was – is – a crypt."

"One of the Morning Star's, Kokabiel?" Cas asked.

"We believe so." The man inclined his head and picked a soft roll, spreading it thickly with the soft cheese. "In the crypt, the demons gathered many things for their lord."

Dean frowned. "What about the door to Hell?"

"The mining company drilled a hole and hit a gas pocket, a cavern. The rig fell in and the company thought they could burn off the gas. They drilled the hole in 1971. It is still burning," Kokabiel said, taking a bite from the roll. "The legends spread quickly that it was a gate to Hell."

"There is no gate there," Cas said firmly. "Just one of Lucifer's traps to build his hiding place so close to a gas cavern."

"And where is this?" Sam asked.

"In the middle of the Karakum Desert, Turkmenistan."

The hunters looked at each other. None of the possible locations were going to be feasible without the angel's help.

"So, what's the plan?" Dean looked around the table.

"From here, it will take us two or three months to get to Alexandria and Zimbabwe, a little less to reach Karakum," Kokabiel said, looking at Araquiel. The dark-haired Watcher nodded. "We will leave in the morning."

"Two or three months?" Dean looked at him. "We could all be dead in two or three months the way the monsters are increasing at home." He turned to the angel. "You could get us there in minutes –"

"I told you, I cannot, Dean," Cas said, looking down at the table. "The rebellion is very close to civil war and it is not just Lucifer that they were liaising with."

Gadriel stared at him. "Who else?"

"The Grigori," Cas admitted reluctantly, lifting his head to look at the Qaddiysh.

"No, they were destroyed," Gadriel said softly, disbelievingly. "I saw their bodies wash out to sea."

"Not all of them."

"How many survived?" Araquiel leaned across the table toward the angel, his eyes narrowed and dark.

"Twenty seven." Castiel sighed. "They are three groups now, one in Europe, in the mountains behind Italy. One in China. And there is a group in the United States, in Utah, we think, although they have been careful to keep their exact location hidden."

"The Grigori?" Sam asked.

"I thought that was another name for the Qaddiysh?" Jasper frowned. "A medieval name?"

"No, although it is what humanity calls the Others," Kokabiel said heavily. "They were Lucifer's followers in the battle between his rebels and the army of Heaven. They ran from the killing ground when they saw how it would go, when they saw what would happen to those who had stood up with the Lightbringer," he explained, his gestures vague and tired. "They fled to the east, across the deserts and settled in Persia for some time. When the Flood came, we saw many die. We thought – we believed – we wanted to believe – that it was all of them."

"So … they're like you?" Dean looked at him curiously. "Fallen angels?"

"We fell with our Grace intact, with the blessing and at the request of our Father," Araquiel corrected him tersely. "The rest – the Others – fell with Lucifer, made flesh and blood when they appeared on this plane. They do not have their Grace, but their wings were not shorn from them as Lucifer and his follower's were. They are still angels, of a sort."

"And they have their own children," Castiel added. "And have sought and gained the support of at least some of the cambion."

Dean saw the shock on the faces of the men that sat at the table, not really men, but still flesh and blood and bone. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what had caused it.

"The cambion were all but extinct!" Peter exclaimed, his face as pale and rigid as those of the Qaddiysh.

"Not any more," Castiel said. "It was something that Lucifer attended to while the virus spread and overtook humanity, sending out demons in the constructs and compatible vessels to achieve his goals."

"What are the cambion?" Sam asked, looking from the hunter to the angel.

"They are the offspring of the union between a human woman and a demon, in mythology," Jasper answered him slowly. "Like the nephilim, their power is greater than the demon that spawned them."

"Half-breeds, everywhere," Dean muttered to himself. "Well, that's just fucking perfect."

"The power of the hybrids is the greatest when they are young," Baraquiel said. "It is predicated on belief. A child believes in everything. By the time they reach adulthood, they believe in much less and the power likewise declines."

"What about the tablets?" Dean shunted the thoughts of hybrids and power greater than angels to one side. "Can we get them?"

"They are safer where they are," Araquiel said, looking at him directly. "Only three of us know their locations and none know all."

"That doesn't sound safe," Peter argued. "You are mortal. You can be found. Tortured."

"The keepers are as safe here as they would be in Heaven," Gadriel said sharply.

Dean glanced at Cas' face. From his expression, he didn't find that reassuring.

* * *

"I won't return with you to the United States, Dean," Peter said quietly in the black shadow beside the canyon wall. "I will go to the Vatican, attempt to meet Elena and her team there and retrieve the documents we need."

Dean shook his head. "How the fuck are you going to get there – from here?"

"It is not far to the coast, there will be boats still, and it will take only a few days to reach the mouth of the Roman river and travel up to the city."

"On your own? No, goddammit, we need you in this fight," Dean argued.

"I could go with him," Sam suggested.

"No!" Both men turned to him, the vehement response delivered in unison. Peter shook his head.

"I have hunted alone for many years, and I am still skilled at keeping out of sight. By boat the trip will be safe – safer – than by land, and quicker."

Dean looked at him. "What happens if by whatever miracle you make it and meet them there?"

"I can help take the texts back to Lourdes," Peter said. "And I can meet the Qaddiysh, guide them to the United States, bring them to Kansas with the box."

"In what – three months? Four or five by that time?" Dean looked at the ground. "Better hope there's still someone alive to hand it over to."

"Nothing will happen that fast," Peter said, hoping that was true. The vampire nest, the skinwalker pack, they had been large already but they didn't know exactly when the tablet had been broken. "The firstborn children of the Dark Mother are still imprisoned. It will take her time to free them."

Sam looked at his brother. "He's right, and Rufus and Maurice and the others have been looking for survivors, the less left around, the less they can turn."

Dean rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the last seventy-two hours drop onto him. "Alright. When you get back to the chapter house, let us know."

"Are you ready?"

They turned at Castiel's voice behind them. Jasper stood with the angel, an armload of books held tightly against his chest.

"Nephilim, Cas? Half-breed demons and angels and Pandora's box?" Dean looked at the angel. "Couldn't have given us a bit of warning about this?"

Cas looked at him. "It wasn't relevant before, Dean."

"Well, it's fucking relevant now!" he snapped back. "How are we supposed to deal with these things in the middle of everything else?"

"At the moment the Grigori are negotiating with the rebels," Cas said tightly. "The moment anything changes, I will let you know."

He reached out and Peter stepped back as the angel touched the men and they vanished, the sound of beating wings loud in the close confines of the canyon walls. He looked up at the sky and turned, heading north along the loose sand of the ravine's floor.

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon**_

They opened their eyes to the warmth of the Indian summer air, on the lookout tower. Dean spun around as the angel vanished.

"Cas! Dammit!" he said, looking around and scowling. "Just a few fucking questions!"

"Come on," Sam said, pulling off his coat as he started down the stairs, Jasper following him. Giving up on the hope that angel might return, Dean turned for the narrow door and closed it behind him.

"How is it even possible for an angel or a demon to have a kid with a human woman?" he asked Jasper as they reached the keep's library. "I mean, angels – junkless, right? And demons are just smoke."

Sam poured an inch of whiskey into three glasses, nodding as he handed them to his brother and Jasper. "And in a vessel, wouldn't it be the vessel's DNA that got passed along, not the angel or demon's?"

Jasper chuckled softly. "I'm flattered that you think my knowledge is so vast that it encompasses this."

"You don't know?" Dean said, disappointed.

"Well, I can tell you the mythology of it, but I think your friend is the only one who could probably explain whatever science there is behind it."

"We'll take what you've got, prof," Sam said, sitting down at the table. "This is the first we've heard of it."

"The legends of the nephilim have been around for more than two thousand years. They were written in the texts long before the Flood," he said, sitting opposite them and looking into his glass. "They were variously known, as giants, as a long-lived race of perfect men, as demons, as angels, both evil and good, depending on whose version you read."

He looked up at them. "The Watchers we met, they Fell as they explained, with their Grace. Their bodies are real – flesh and blood and bone and nerve – those are not vessels. When they fell to earth they formed the bodies we see from the air, from the soil, from the rock and tree and sunlight – energy, gentleman, the same energy that exists in everything, vibrating faster or slower."

Sam nodded encouragingly. "Sure."

"Their biology is not the same as human biology; they have extra chromosomes, six pairs, on the strand. They are, however compatible enough to be able to interbreed, and three pairs of the chromosomes are passed along from the genetic material of the father to the offspring."

"For mythology, this is sounding pretty scientific?" Dean looked at him, brows raised.

Jasper smiled slightly. "It's just speculation." He sipped at the whiskey. "In the case of the demons, it's more complicated. They do use the vessel, not a construct in the way an angel can – they are merely souls, once human, twisted and distorted and mangled, but nonetheless just souls. But they can permeate every cell in their possession as an angel can when invited into a vessel with its consent. And the permeation of the demon's essence, at a cellular level, enables certain changes."

"Like what?"

"Like the power of two souls residing in the same flesh," Jasper said. "Like the ability to unlock those parts of the brain that humankind has not used for a millennia. Psychic power." He looked up as Dean's gaze met Sam's. "Yes, as the blood Azazel fed you as an infant unlocked those gifts in you."

Dean's attention sharpened on his brother as he realised that Sam must've told the old man about it. Sam shrugged.

"At a cellular level, things can be changed," Jasper continued. "Changed permanently. The abilities you developed, that the other children developed, they were never demonic in and of themselves, you understand. Every human being has the capability, to a greater or lesser degree, where the brain meets the mind."

"Say again?" Dean asked shortly.

"Our brains and minds are quite separate," Jasper said, the whiskey slopping around the glass as he waved it for emphasis. "Like the hardware and software of a computer, one is designed to run down, burn out, holding memories and knowledge for so long and no longer. It is a redundancy system for the mind, which holds everything including the control over the brain and the body."

"What exactly was your specialty in that fancy college?" Dean looked at him uncertainly.

Jasper laughed. "The mind is what lives on. With the soul, the mind is what carries on, after death has turned our bodies to dust, the mind keeps going."

For a moment, Dean felt the searing heat and raw agony of the pit, in his nerves and skin and muscles. He'd been a soul, with no body, no flesh to be carved. But the demons had carved anyway, every detail of his body remembered and no possibility of escaping the pain that lived in the memories, that could not overload as a physical body did when pain became too much to bear, that simply had to endure no matter what happened. He closed his eyes and shunted the memory back down, into the depths, dragging in a breath.

"Yeah, alright," he said unsteadily. "So demons can change the body enough to pass on … whatever it is they pass on to a human child?"

Jasper nodded, keeping his gaze on the table in front of him. Sam had told him a little of his life, wanting his opinion of certain aspects on what had happened to him. He'd told him of his brother's sacrifice. And briefly, what that had entailed.

"And that is the cambion," Jasper said, swirling the last of the amber liquid around in his glass and tossing it back. "Baraquiel was quite correct. In both cases, the most power of either hybrid is in the childhood years. Once adulthood is reached, the ability to believe has diminished and they are, perhaps somewhere between the power of a man and the power of their fathers. There is only way to kill them."

"That being?" Dean asked, glad the conversation had moved to solid ground again.

"The heart has to be cut out." Jasper said tiredly. "They will survive anything else, even decapitation unless the heart is removed from the body and burned."

* * *

_**Corsica, Mediterranean Sea**_

The boat rolled slowly from side to side, the engines chugging deep below, their reverberations felt through the steel hull. Elena looked up at the sky, eyes narrowing as she took in the line of blackness that lay to the east. They were only a few hours from the mouth of the Tiber, they should reach the coast before the mistral came upon them, she thought.

"Like a holiday," Isabeau said from beside and she turned to smile at the younger woman, her long, pale blonde hair blowing in the light breeze.

"Not for much longer," Elena said, turning back to the rail. "We will prepare everything tonight, go up the river at midnight."

"Did you try the radio, mam'selle?"

"It was fried. The wiring was gone," Elena said, turning to look at her. "Jean will know you are alright."

Isabeau smiled slightly. "P'raps. I will put it out of my head before we start."

"Can you tell Marc to start preparing our gear – and Francois needs to have everything we're not taking packed away. I do not know how many of the documents we will be bringing with us, but it will be as many as we can."

"_Oui_, mam'selle."

She stopped a few steps from the older woman. "Who is staying aboard?"

"Luc," Elena said absently, running a hand through her short, dark hair. "If we need to get out in a hurry, he's the only one who can get this tub going fast."

And it was entirely likely that they would be chased with their load of knowledge, she thought. The Vatican's vaults had held – did hold – a store of treasures that most had no idea of. Some would know, would be waiting for a party like themselves, with the correct keys and incantations to let them in. They would have to be careful. And fast.

* * *

_**Redwood Falls, Minnesota**_

Maurice glanced at Rona as they drove slowly up to the barricade in front of the long high-school building.

"Devil's trap," she remarked, looking at the road in front of them.

"Yeah, someone here knows what they're up against."

Behind the piles of rusty and bent-up vehicles that had been stacked on top of each of other to form a wall around the building and across the road, he could see movement.

"HALT!"

The voice, loud and strident in the clear morning air, came from a megaphone, he thought, tapping the brake. Three blocks behind them, Lee and Danielle were keeping out of sight in the truck.

"GET OUT OF THE CAR."

"Not a good idea," Rona said softly, her fingers curled around the shotgun in her lap.

"Only game in town," Maurice shrugged and turned the key, the engine stopping. He had an automatic in a pancake holster in the small of his back, under his jacket and he left the assault rifle on the seat beside him, opening the door and sliding out, keeping his hands in view.

He heard the clunk of the passenger door as Rona did the same.

"What do you want?" The volume of the voice dropped, and Maurice realised it was a woman's voice, harsh with nerves.

"We're looking for survivors," he called out, gaze scanning along the makeshift wall.

"Why?"

He turned as the woman let the megaphone drop, and he saw her, standing behind one of the vehicles. She was small and thin, dark, curly hair cut short and framing a face that was slightly hollowed out with hunger and tension.

"I'm Maurice, that's Rona," he said, looking at her. "We've got a place, in Kansas, a lot of us there, farming – we're looking for people who might not be surviving so well on their own," he explained awkwardly.

"We've heard that before," she said coldly. "Before being marched into a slave camp."

"We're not demons," Rona said from the other side of the pickup. "Just trying to help."

"We're fine, thanks," the woman said, glancing at her and back to Maurice. "You can be on your way."

"You don't look fine," Maurice countered gently. "You look hungry. And tired."

"We can take care of ourselves," a man's voice said loudly. He came out from behind the wreckage to stand beside the woman, staring at them belligerently. "And anyone else who comes along."

He lifted the gun in his hands and waved it, and from behind them, down the street, Maurice heard voices and footsteps. He sighed. He should've left Lee and Danielle out of town completely, but it was hard to predict what they'd find.

"The demon problem isn't the only thing you've got to worry about," Maurice said, looking at the woman. "There're other things that are going to come after you – things you've only seen in horror movies and your worst nightmares."

Her eyes narrowed at him. "Like what?"

"Like vampires, and werewolf and shapeshifters and everything you didn't think existed!" Rona snapped at her. "You're in danger and you can't protect yourselves!"

"How do you know about the monsters?"

"Before the virus, that's what we did, mostly. We're hunters," Maurice said, looking at her thoughtfully. She hadn't scoffed at Roma's assertion.

"Hunters?" she asked. "You've read the books?"

"What books?"

"If you're hunters, how do you kill a wendigo?" she asked suddenly.

Maurice glanced at Rona in surprise, then back to the woman. "With fire."

"And a wraith?"

"Silver."

"Tilly, just because they –" the man beside her started to say.

"Test them," Tilly cut him off. "Salt, iron, silver, holy water and the trap."

An engine started and Maurice watched a section of the wall move aside slowly. Two men and a woman came out through the narrow gap, holding a bags and bottles and knives.

He stepped forward, rolling up his sleeve.

* * *

Maurice looked around the wide space. The auditorium for the school had been modified into a hall, filled with tables and chairs, the bleachers used as shelving, a fire burning at one end, warming the interior fitfully. Tilly had told them there were ninety people here, their ages ranging from an eighty-six year old woman down to a four-month old baby. Looking at them, seated at the tables or gathered around the makeshift hearth, he thought that none of them looked particularly well. Malnutrition, lack of exercise, fear and anxiety, all had lent a grey tint to their skin, all had brought the bones underneath into sharp relief.

"But I don't understand, if you haven't read the books, how did you know about this stuff?" she asked again.

"Can I see one of the books?" he asked, turning back to her. After a moment's thought, she nodded, getting up and going out. She came back a few minutes later, a battered and much-taped paperback in one hand. He looked at the grimed and creased cover as he took it from her.

_Supernatural_, by Carver Edlund. He opened it, eyes widening as he reading the character names, and looked up at her.

"How many of these are there?"

"Um … twenty four," she said. "They saved our lives."

"Uh-huh."

"But you haven't read them," she said flatly, watching him read down the page.

"No, but these are … uh … probably based on real events, you know," he prevaricated fast, wondering how the hell these had been written. "Maybe some hunter talked to the author."

"Yeah, I guess."

He debated internally on the question of telling her about the Winchesters, real men, not just two-dimensional characters in a bunch of cheap paperbacks, finally deciding against. It would be easier once these people had met them, seen the keeps in Kansas, become a part of their ever-growing population.

"The situation is getting worse, Tilly," he said instead. "We've had information that the monster populations are starting to expand and you're going to get hit here harder and harder."

She looked up at him. "Is your – place – any safer?"

"A lot," he confirmed. "And we're growing food. We need people. You need us."

"It's a long way to Kansas," she said, her teeth catching her lip as she looked absently around the hall. "A long way for these people without protection."

"You've got vehicles?"

"Not many," she admitted. "We can't find the replacement tyres and electrics we need to get the intact ones going."

He nodded. "We can help with that."

She was uneasy about the thought of leaving what had kept them alive, kept them together, he could see. He couldn't describe what they would be going to – not in the kind of detail that would make it seem like a worthwhile trade. And he couldn't tell her that the road to Kansas was not going to be dangerous. That would've been a lie. But they couldn't stay here. They'd die of starvation, being picked off as the creatures of Nintu got stronger and stronger.

She looked at him for a long moment. "I'll put it to a vote this evening," she told him. "It's their lives. They decide."

He hoped that they'd be able to look past the present and to the future then. Because nothing was going to get any better, staying here.

* * *

_**November 2012, Lebanon, Kansas**_

The long building had been the expensive folly of a Wall Street farmer who'd decided that his outbuildings would have timber floors, to save the legs of his prize-winning animals. Dean doubted that any animal had ever been in there, but it was an excellent place for training, the hardwood boards having enough give and flex to be kind to joints, but punishing enough to fall on.

He watched the group in front of him, eyes narrowed in concentration as they sparred in twos at one end of the building. At twelve, Ben was the youngest. Every child had the same training, rotating through the hunters and soldiers living in the keep, learning first self-defensive moves, gun cleaning, packing shells, magazines, honing a blade without destroying the temper of the steel, the sigils and wards and guards of protection, the characteristics, weaknesses and strengths of what was out there and how to counter them. The training would've made him uneasy if it hadn't been so necessary, he thought, watching Ben twist aside and ride Alan's barely-pulled blow, drop to his knees and spring back up, the sound of his taped hand hitting the padding loud in the empty space. It was necessary.

"Alan," he called out, walking onto the floor between the two boys. "How'd Ben know what you were going to do?"

The thirteen-year old dropped his gaze to the floor, thick, blond hair flopping over his forehead. "Telegraphed it."

"Right," Dean said, glancing at Ben. "Where was your weight?"

"Left foot," Alan said with a sigh.

"Where should it've been?"

"Right foot."

"Start again, this time use your head."

He nodded and looked at Ben, both boys dropping into the slight crouch and circling each other.

The apocalypse had brought them a lot of orphans. All of them had found a home, families who'd lost children who'd reached out to them. They were fed and cared for, but it didn't stop the pain of the losses they'd suffered. He'd been careful to instil a respect for what they did into their lives, and somewhat hypocritically, he thought sometimes, a warning against the idea of revenge. It'd taken a long time to learn that revenge wasn't a goal worth pursuing.

His attention sharpened as Alan attacked again, this time in a flurry of action that hadn't been forewarned by an obvious position and watched Ben retreat, blocking and using the blows that came at him. Both boys were fairly evenly matched, and he could see the influences of Franklin and Vince, Rona and Maurice and Boze's offsider, Sean, in their movements. All the hunters used fairly standard attack and defence styles. He'd have to think of a way to make that more difficult, because none of the monsters he'd ever fought had followed the same techniques and much of the way he'd learned to fight had been taught by the creatures themselves.

"Okay, better," he said, when they'd reached an impasse. They straightened up and turned to look at him.

"Alan, you going out with Rona today?"

The boy nodded, crossing the floor and heading for the door. "See you later, Ben!"

"Yeah," Ben said, walking over to Dean, a frown creasing his forehead. "I'll be fourteen in May, Dean."

"Yep, and until then you're not going," Dean said easily, the conversation a familiar one.

"I'm just as good as the others," Ben insisted, turning with the hunter to walk out.

"Better," Dean agreed. "In most stuff."

"Then why can't I go out on the perimeter runs?"

"Not fourteen yet."

"Why does that matter?" Ben stopped and looked at him in frustration.

"Because it's the way we're doing it," Dean said, looking back at him. "And that's the end of it."

Ben made a face and caught up. "It's not logical."

"Too bad," Dean said, hiding a grin. "Besides, I need your help right now."

Ben's head lifted sharply as he looked at him. "Really?"

"Yeah, really," Dean said, gesturing to the keep walls. "Go tell Maureen you'll be late back, I'll meet you at the gate."

He watched the boy race away. He'd wondered if he should've moved Ben in with them when they got here, but he wasn't around all that much and Bobby'd pointed out that it would be better for Ben to have a family who was there all the time. He still wasn't sure if it'd been the right decision, but he had to admit that Ben was content enough with the family who'd taken him in, survivors of Las Vegas, with three other orphans and two children of their own. The combination of a stable family life and the time he could spend with the boy seemed to be working out alright.

Walking up to the keep, he remembered abruptly that they would be heading to Michigan in the morning. He thought Ben would want to come along to that as well. There was a small part of him that was unwilling to get too close to Ben. It didn't seem to matter that between them, the relationship that was slowly developing was honest and okay. It was never going to be okay, what he'd done, no matter that he'd had to do it, not for him, and he suspected, not for the boy whose mother he'd killed. And spending time with him kept those memories from sinking, kept them alive.

* * *

_**Camp Tawas, East Lake Tawas, Michigan**_

The camp had grown, Alex thought, looking around as they waited for Boze and Renee to come out of the chapel. They had a lot more people here now, and the buildings had been extended and raised in every direction, crowded tightly against the palisade walls, the damage from the air strike repaired so that she couldn't tell which buildings had been hit, and which had not.

Through the long drive from Kansas to the northern state, she'd been unable to take her eyes off the countryside on the way, Dean had skirted the larger cities, but even from a distance she could see that the buildings were collapsing, trees and fields and growth breaking up the roads, the foundations. It wouldn't take very long before they vanished altogether, she'd thought. Everywhere, the rampant growth of vegetation had been astonishing, the regions that had once been tamed and cultivated fields and towns and farms gone beneath newly growing forest and stretches of high grain grasses. And they'd seen more animals along the way, deer and goats and cattle gone wild, heads lifting sharply as the car had growled past, dropping again to feast on the plentiful pastures.

Negotiating the highways, Dean'd remarked that they were going to have to think about repairing the roads, at least the direct route between Kansas and Michigan, or they'd be forced to revert to horseback travel to get through. Even now, the roads were cracked and humped, grass spreading from the verges along the fissures to the centres. She'd agreed with him, wondering if there were enough people to make that a feasible option. Something to talk over with Boze, in any case.

Her attention was dragged back to the present as the newly-wed couple emerged through the doors, showered with rice and confetti. Following Dean and Ben as they walked after the couple toward the main hall, she wondered if Renee's hope of a few peaceful months would come about.

"Weddings not your thing?"

She turned to see Franklin beside her, smiling slightly but his blue eyes thoughtful as he looked at her. She shook her head, brushing off the concern she could feel from him.

"Just hoping Renee gets enough honeymoon time before anything happens," she said with a sigh.

"Probably not," the hunter said cheerfully. "Not that that's anything new."

He took her arm as the press of the crowd got closer. "What'd you think of the country on the way here?"

"I think that the Mother Goddess has been walking fast," she said, nose wrinkling up. "Even after the rains, it wasn't growing as fast as it is now."

"Yeah, kind of thought myself," Franklin agreed. "Kim and Ray have noticed another anomaly."

"What?"

"You should probably talk to them," he hedged as they walked into the hall. "Asked me to find you."

"This is going to spoil my enjoyment in the rest of the day, isn't it?"

He looked down at her, mouth lifting on one side. "Hard to say, I'm not sure it's bad news exactly."

She frowned at him as he edged them both to the side of the hall and walked down past the tables toward the low dais set at the front. Kim and Ray stood together with Merrin and Bernice and two others she didn't know.

"Alex, this is Bob Malley, he's a doctor from Austin," Kim said, as Alex extended her hand to the tall, thin, grey-haired man standing next to Merrin. "And Meredith Forsythe, Obstetrics from Atlanta."

The woman was tall and thin, carrot-red hair cut short around a square, uncompromising face, in her late forties, Alex guessed, and had been at the top of her tree judging by the confidence in her face and the short, hard shake she got from her.

Looking at their faces, she could see that all of them were worried about something. "What's the problem?"

Kim glanced at Meredith, who shrugged. "Not sure it's a problem, exactly," she said slowly. "Over the last two weeks, we've all had a lot of people – women – coming in for tests."

"What kind of tests?" Alex asked, feeling her stomach drop.

"Pregnancy tests," Bob said, his long face worried. "And they've all been positive."

"Okay," she said, looking from him to Merrin. "How many are we talking about?"

"In Tawas, we've seen over five hundred women in the last two weeks," Bernice said sharply. "Lake West sent over another two hundred just last week."

Feeling her brows rising, Alex turned to Kim. "And in Lebanon?"

"More than six hundred over the past two weeks," Kim confirmed. "And I'm expecting more."

"You're expecting more?"

"The range has been across the board, Alex," Merrin cut in. "Every woman of child-bearing age and good health – from fifteen to forty-five and a few under and over – has tested positive."

She looked at her. "Are you talking immaculate conceptions here, or …"

"No," Bob said. "We weren't sure until we put all the cases together, and did some follow up on the women who weren't involved in a stable relationship, but all of them reported having some kind of sexual encounter between the last week of October and the first week of November and these are just the ones to notice early."

"It wasn't just the plant life," Franklin added, one brow lifted at her.

"Guess not," she said, looking distractedly around the hall. Of the six thousand odd people that were divided between the two communities, a little under half were women, and most were in their most fertile years. "If the conceptions are all around the same time, it's going to be chaos."

"Yes," Meredith said dryly. "We need to start training people now, midwives, nurses, assistants."

"And we should test everyone who fits the criteria, Alex," Kim said. "We can't leave it up to the women to notice first."

Alex dragged in a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah, okay. We'll get everyone organised for testing and Liev and Ryan can figure out the best way to handle the maternity wards – and I'll through the intakes again. How many can each of you handle for training?"

"As many as we need to," Merrin said firmly.

* * *

Dean looked around as Alex walked to the table and sat down beside him. "What happened to you?"

"Quick conference with our medics," she said, staring down at her plate. "Seems like Ninhursag has already been through our states."

"What do you mean?"

"Kim and the others just told me that we might be expecting somewhere in the vicinity of three thousand new arrivals in around nine months time," she told him dryly.

"What?"

"We need to get everyone together and figure out how we're going to deal with this."

"Slow down," he said, turning to stare at her. "There are three thousand pregnant women in the camps?"

"Maybe a little more or less, but yeah," she said. "Sometime between the end of October, and the beginning of November, the docs think."

"How?"

"Goddess of creativity, remember?" She shrugged and reached for a bread roll. "We saw the growth of the forests and fields on the way over, I'm guessing the animal populations are going to get a huge boost as well."

"But … three thousand?"

"Every woman they've tested has been positive. Everyone of child-bearing age and in good health has conceived, they think."

He leaned back in the chair. "Is it going to be an ongoing thing?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "It might be if she passes back through and we haven't managed to lock her up again. This is what she did, according to Jerome and Davis and Katherine – populated the earth."

"Doesn't it take two?"

"Apparently, that was a busy two or three weeks for the men available."

He looked at her, hearing the faintest edge to her voice. "You okay?"

"Just wondering where we're going to put the maternity wards," she said lightly, her gaze cutting away. "It's going to put something of a shorter time-frame on getting all the survivors we can find into safe places."

"Yeah," he agreed. There was something she wasn't saying, but he had the feeling she wouldn't talk about it now. Here. He exhaled softly.

"Is this a good thing or a bad thing?"

Alex shook her head. "Depends on how we handle it, I guess. Overall, for humanity, I think it'll be a good thing."


	5. Chapter 5 On the Wings of Maybe

**Chapter 5 On the Wings of Maybe**

* * *

_**November 2012, Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Sam closed the book with a thud, aware of the priest watching him from the other end of the table.

"Whatever it is, just say it, would you?" he said irritably, sliding the next from the pile across in front of him.

"I cannot decide if you are searching for answers – or doing penance, Sam," Father Emilio said, looking at the deep shadows under the younger man's eyes.

"Does it matter?" Sam asked, gesturing vaguely around the room.

"Of course," the priest said at once, as if the question was ridiculous. "You cannot serve two masters. If you are searching for answers, then look, with hope in your heart and a keen mind to see the patterns as they emerge." He smiled slightly at Sam's expression. "If you would do penance for your sins, then take it somewhere else, and do it properly."

"There is nothing I can do that will ever pay for what happened, Father," Sam said tiredly. He knew the priest was right. Searching until he was too exhausted to see properly wasn't doing the job. And it didn't matter how much he tried to convince himself that he was paying for his choices, the knowledge of what'd he done, what he'd set into motion and failed to stop, lay as heavily on him now as it had when he'd wrestled control from the angel and forced him out.

"There is a payment for everything, Sam," Father Emilio said gently. "And it will only come when you are ready for it. In the meantime, you should focus on one job, and do that to the best of your abilities."

"I would pay anything right now to not feel the way I do," Sam snapped at him. "To not feel the – what I feel about my life."

"But you are not ready," the priest said. "You still argue with yourself over the choices you made, still seek out the justifications for what you did, what you thought. It is acceptance that you are searching for, Sam."

"Accepting that I did what I did because I was weak?"

"Accepting that you did what you did, and that's all," Father Emilio corrected him. "Accept it and understand it."

Sam opened the book in front of him, staring at the title page without seeing it. In the abstract, he understood what was expected of him. To acknowledge and accept, to take the responsibility without justification or rationalisation or excuse. To just see that it was a part of him. In actuality, however, he realised the priest was right. He wasn't close to that yet. The blood. The demon. The sacrifice and the pain that had followed it. The bitter despair of being unable to find a single thing that would save his brother, that would get him out of the flames and torture Dean had condemned himself to – to save his life. The knowledge that he couldn't bear the responsibility of that decision, the weight of it, couldn't live with it or the stark reminder that he'd been loved so desperately that Dean had thought that the trade was worth it.

"You are not the first to struggle with the consequences of your actions, Sam," Father Emilio continued quietly. "Perhaps you could find some help in the accounts of their struggles?"

He looked up at the priest and shook his head. "I don't think I can find comfort in the crappy decisions others have made before me, Father," he said tiredly. "I don't know where to start with learning to accept all of this."

"What is the thing you most regret?"

"You mean aside from breaking the last seal on Lucifer's cage and freeing him into this world, and then giving him the vessel he needed to begin his plans of complete genocide of humanity?" Sam asked, his voice bright with sarcasm.

"Yes, not the things that threatened the world, just the thing that you cannot find your way past because it was personal to you, because it meant the most to you," the priest told him.

"Pride," Sam said slowly. "Thinking I knew what I was doing and not listening – believing that I knew better – than the people who – cared about me."

"Then start with that," Father Emilio suggested, getting up from the table and tucking several books under his arm. "It is in the things that have wounded closest to our hearts that we can find the way to the rest."

He turned and walked away, heading out of the library and down the hall. Sam watched him go, then looked at his watch. Two a.m. He should give it up for the night, he thought. Get some sleep and try again in the morning. Later in the morning. He closed the book and picked up the ones he'd already covered, moving slowly through the stacks to return them to their places.

There was no way to undo the mistakes he'd made. He'd joined with Ruby in the blackest despair, amidst a certainty that Dean had sacrificed himself for nothing, feeling as if revenge was the only possible course that held any meaning for him. There was no way he could find to get into Hell. And no way to rescue a soul from the pit, even if he could find a way in.

It'd taken Dean a while to figure out what their father had done for him, and the guilt had almost killed him when he'd put the pieces together and realised where John Winchester was, and what was happening to him. It had crushed the framework that his brother had lived by, the love that had been the core of his life, under the weight of that burden, and yet he'd done the same thing without a qualm for Sam, knowing how it would feel.

He did the only thing he could, Sam told himself. The same as their father had done the only he could in the face of losing the son he loved. The fact that they'd both chosen to sacrifice themselves for the people they'd loved the most hadn't been lost on Sam. The fact that he would have not made the same choice, in the same circumstances, hadn't been lost on him either. He'd tried to make a deal, a straight swap for Dean's soul and had been refused, not just once but countless times. Each time had reinforced the idea that he was not made of the same stuff as his father and brother.

Bobby had told him, in a long, rambling, drunken conversation when the two of them had been alone in the junkyard one evening, what Dean'd said to the old man when he'd brought Sam back from Cold Oak and Bobby had realised what he'd done. At the time, he'd thought he'd understood what the hunter had been telling him, had thought he'd understood what Dean had felt and why he'd made the deal. He hadn't. And he hadn't realised that until he'd stood in Atlanta, the angel inside his body forcing him to stare across a bleak and barren landscape, to see a world without hope. It just hadn't occurred to him before that his brother had only seen one role for himself, in all the years of growing up together. And having failed that, couldn't see a life that could mean anything.

He was still the protector, Sam thought now, walking up the stairs. Now that protectorate had expanded to include every survivor, but he was still struggling under a weight of responsibility that didn't include whatever dreams he might've had, whatever hopes he might've held for himself.

* * *

_**Tiber River, Italy**_

Elena looked across the inky river, moving the scull slowly enough to avoid a splash. Behind her, another of the long, narrow-hulled boats moved steadily upstream, both barely visible shadows as they slipped under the bridges and past the ruins.

Michel's scopes flashed silently within the deep, black canvas bags on the floorboards of the boats, Marc's face lit by the dim red light. Thermal imaging would give them warning of anything radiating heat within two hundred yards. The movement detector had less range but greater accuracy, keyed to micro-changes in air density. It would give them some warning of an approach inside the buildings.

"Here," Isabeau's voice breathed in her ear, the sub-vocalisation just audible through the earpiece. "Just past this bridge. Eight hundred feet to the piazza."

The boats drew in close to the stone-walled banks of the river and they tied the lines to the iron rings set into the walls, climbing to the road above. Isabeau gestured to the street opposite and Elena nodded, moving across the open ground and gaining the black shadows under the buildings that lined the other side. Three hundred feet to the Borgo Santo Spirito, which would lead them straight to the Piazza Saint Pietro, and into the Basilica. Flicking the lights off on the detectors, she slid the earpiece for the movement detector into one ear, checking as Marc did the same for the infrared. They moved along the dark street in single file, soft-soled shoes making almost no sound on the pavements.

The vaults and catacombs under the city were extensive, but Maria had explained that the libraries they wanted were limited to the lowest levels under the Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. The entrance was through the easily accessible cave gates. The passages from the caves to the deepest levels had been locked and guarded with a series of hidden doors. They would be the hardest to get through.

They had bags packed within the bags they carried, but she still wasn't sure how they were going to retrieve all the texts they would need. The only two hunters who'd seen those documents were thousands of miles away. The city had been overrun several times now since the release of the virus, and Maria had told them that none of the other Vatican hunters had survived. Peter was in the United States. The hunters she had with her were battle-hardened and experienced, but they were only five and she would not risk losing any one of them to whatever had been living in the ruins of Rome for the last three years.

* * *

_**Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

Maurice nodded to Danielle, gesturing ahead. Only a few buildings were still intact in the small town, the forests had reached around the edges, tall enough now to block out the sunshine on what remained of the roads.

Moving in pairs, Maurice and Rona led the small group into the town square, stopping opposite the church that sat on one corner. The hunter looked at the doors of the building, frowning as he saw the deep rips through the wood.

"Anyone here?"

There was a rattle of bolts behind the door and it cracked open an inch or two, the long barrel of a rifle emerging, pointed at them, over that a sliver of a man's face, one bright hazel under a dark brow.

"Get back."

Maurice glanced at Rona, nodding as he lifted his hands and backed away. "We're friendlies."

"Yeah."

The door opened a little wider and the man stepped out. Over six feet, with dark brown hair to his shoulders and a dark beard, threaded with silver, growing in, he kept the barrel pointed at Maurice as his eyes scanned over the others.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice tired and rough with tension.

"Want to find survivors," Maurice said, gesturing behind him. "We got a place in Kansas, growing food and we're looking for people who need help."

"Funny," the man said coldly. "That's what the demons told us before we got chained together and dragged down to Nevada."

"We're not demons."

"You'll have to do better than that."

"You got holy water in that church?" Maurice gestured to the building. "It'll burn a demon or a human being possessed."

The man's eyes narrowed at him. "We do." He stepped back to the doorway, quarter-turning his head. "Alison, dip a cup into the font and bring it out."

"How many of you are there?"

"Not as many as there were before the wolves started showing up," the man said, reaching back without looking as a slender woman passed him a cup.

"Wolves?" Maurice hesitated. "Animals?"

"What else could they be?" The man stepped forward and held out the cup. "Drink."

The hunter walked to the steps and reached for the cup, swallowing a mouthful. He turned as Rona walked up to him, taking the cup and drinking another mouthful.

"We're not demons," Maurice said. "These wolves, they only come at night? On the full moon?" he asked, looking at the riven wood. Too deep for animal claws.

"How'd you know that?"

"Lucky guess," Maurice said distractedly. "How many have you heard?"

The moon had begun waning two nights ago. Would they have enough time to get these people out of here, he wondered?

"There were eight, the first night," Alison stepped into the doorway, and the man moved back a step, covering her automatically. She looked past him. "Then twelve on the next night."

He felt Rona's eyes flick to him. "You lost some folks that first night?"

"Yes, six people were killed." Alison moved past the man, to stand beside him. "Four more were injured. They disappeared the next day."

"Alison," the man's voice held a warning and she looked at him impatiently.

"Drew, what does it matter if they know?" she said sharply, turning back to Maurice. "Those four were bitten."

Maurice nodded slowly. "And they're not dead, but they will have to be killed."

"You're joking," Drew said, his face drawing into a scowl. "They were good men –"

Rona shrugged. "And now they're werewolves."

Drew flashed a derisory look at her. "Werewolves."

"We've got another three weeks to get out of here before they come again –"

Alison shook her head. "No, they're not just attacking on the full moon anymore," she said, looking at the church doors. "They did that last night. They've been coming for over a week now."

_Well, that changed things_, Maurice thought darkly. "This your only shelter?"

Drew nodded reluctantly. "There's a concrete building," he said, pointing out of the square along the street. "That's still intact but it's too big for us to defend."

"Yeah, well, we've ninety people here with us, and we'll need more space," he said tersely, looking up at the other man. "You can stick with us, or stay here, but if they're coming every night, then everyone'll be safer if we're all together."

"He's right," Alison murmured to Drew, looking at the guns the hunters carried.

"How's it possible?" Drew asked, staring at the man in front of him. "Werewolves."

"You've seen them." It wasn't a question and Drew nodded unwillingly.

"Just takes a bite," Rona said quietly. "But they've been around the whole time, just not in numbers like this, and usually they hunt on their own, solitary."

"But not now?" Alison looked at her.

"Apparently not," Maurice answered, turning around and lifting his arm in a wide swing. Beyond the screening forest, the vehicles drove slowly into the square.

* * *

_**Lightning Oak Keep, Kansas**_

"Bobby," Doug said, looking up from the radio as Bobby walked past. "Got something – Maurice."

Bobby looked down at the radio and picked up the mike. "Maurice? Where the hell are you?"

"Blue Earth," the hunter's voice came back loud and reasonably clear, a brief crackle of static over it. "Need you to let everyone know about the werewolves."

Bobby closed his eyes. "What about the werewolves?"

"Not hunting on the full moon anymore, for starters," Maurice said shortly. "And they're hunting in packs."

"You know, I've had just about as much good news as I can stand," Bobby said, staring at the radio.

"Yeah, I hear you."

"You found anyone?"

"Yeah, we'll try and take down this pack tonight, get on the road tomorrow. We'll bring about a hundred and fifty back, if we don't find any more."

_And if you don't lose any of them_, Bobby thought. "You need some backup?"

"Not for this," Maurice said. "I'll let you know tomorrow."

"Roger, out."

"Out."

He handed the mike back to Doug and turned around, heading for the offices behind the store-rooms. Ellen needed to know about this and he'd head over and see Dean straight after.

* * *

_**Chamberlain, South Dakota**_

Mist obscured the river from the western bank, swirling in the fickle breeze, thickening and thinning as the dawn light played with shadows and shapes that appeared and disappeared.

Rufus stared at the pylons of the bridge morosely. They would be exposed along the road the whole way across. And he didn't like the stillness of the woods. A lot of wildlife had returned in the last six months and he should've been able to hear some of it. But the bank was silent, and the river, and as far as he could tell the opposite side, where the remains of the town were invisible beyond the mist, as well.

Beside him, Jack was crouched silently. Further along the bank, Christine, Elias, Herb and Winifred were waiting for him to make up his mind.

He lifted his arm and dropped it, rising from the crouch and feeling like he'd just made a mistake. How big that mistake would turn out to be remained to be seen, he thought sourly.

Herb and Winifred remained with the civilians, packed in a tight bunch in the vehicles they'd been able to salvage, within the treeline. Jack, Christine and Elias followed Rufus along the bank and onto the gravelled approach to the bridge, moving silently and in single file across the open spans. The river was wide next to the town, the span of the bridge and the partially banked interstate beside it almost a mile in length, and aside from the almost inaudible chuckle of the water around the concrete and steel pylons, they walked through a wall of fog and silence, water condensing on their hair and clothes and weapons, dripping slowly.

Swearing inwardly, Rufus saw the mists thickening on the town side as they approached. He'd been reading nothing but vampire lore since he'd gotten back from Amarillo, and in the oldest writings, there'd been a series of accounts from some dark age hunters about the ability of the old vampires to create illusion, to thicken mist and separate travellers. He glanced back and made a sharp gesture, the hunters closing up closer behind him as they walked past the first of the buildings patchily visible from the road.

Jack looked at it, lifting a brow. Rufus shook his head. Even from here the torn out siding was visible, showing sharp-edged patches of darkness against the pale steel sheets. Something had been through here. They didn't really want to find out what.

He felt more of a foreboding as he saw the boneyard to the right. Most of it was obscured by the low, ground-clinging fog, but ghouls invariably started out with the dead and worked their up to living flesh. It didn't look like a big one, or an old one, and that was something.

High school or hospital, he wondered, standing at the crossroads. Both were big enough to take a few survivors, built of brick and likely to have remained mostly intact and he could just make out their shapes through the unnatural gloom. The high school was closer, the hospital divided up into a number of smaller buildings.

The scream, muffled and distorted by the mist, was shocking in its raw suddenness, and the hunters froze, eyes flicking from side to side in an effort to pinpoint the location. The automatic gunfire that followed was not ambiguous, a fusillade from the left.

"High school!" Rufus hissed, swinging an arm wide and over. They crossed the road and the dried grass of the front gardens and lawns, moving at a fast run. None of them saw the figures as they emerged from the shadows around the square front of the building, Christine going down first, her gun flying over the grass as the pale-skinned creature sank its teeth into the back of her shoulder.

Elias swung the long-bladed machete and the head flew off to bounce against the school's steps. The concerted whisper of steel drawn from leather was unheard over the firing from the side of the building, Jack and Elias standing back to back over the trainee as Rufus ran for the doors, swinging around at the last minute to duck and swing, barely catching a glimpse of vivid blue eyes and long teeth before the head was gone into the mist. He thumped on the door with one fist, staring into the thick, nacreous fog as a stray beam of sunlight lit it up.

"Get her up here," he called down to them and Elias nodded, watching their backs as Jack picked up Christine and ran for the doors.

"More of them, six o'clock," Elias said, panting as he backed up the steps.

"How many?"

"Four."

"Jack, raise hell on this door," Rufus said, moving out and away from the trainees to stand next to the auburn-haired hunter. "I just got done with goddamned vampires."

"Must like you," Elias said, quarter-turning as the group in front of them spread out.

"Yeah, just my luck."

There was a drawn-out screech from behind them as the door opened, and Rufus saw Jack disappear inside with Christine from the corner of his eye as he watched the vamps slow down.

"What the hell took you two so long?"

The voice was familiar. Risking a fast glance over his shoulder, Rufus saw Nathaniel Winslow behind him. He hadn't seen the hunter in more than eight years.

"You know, two-way radios are called that for a reason, you sonofabitch," he said shortly. "Could've warned us you had company."

"Could've if the vamps hadn't figured out about the two-way part," Nate agreed readily. "Had some kind of jammer going for the last week, and more and more of them just keep showing up."

Elias frowned. "They're monsters, Nate, not Radio Shack geeks."

"Well, someone's teaching them something," Nate said, moving out between them, the blade in his hand glinting softly in the dim light.

The vampires stopped, staring at the three men for a moment then turned and vanished into the mist.

"Odds not so favourable?" Elias wondered aloud.

"Better hope that's the case," Rufus growled, gesturing to the inside of the building. "We've got a vulnerable lot of people sitting on the other side of the river, so let's hear it fast," he added to Nate as the door was closed and locked and chained up behind them.

"Heard some chatter right at the edge of the signal about four weeks ago," Nate said, striding down the linoleum-covered hallway toward the cafeteria. "We started south, thinking the farmland would be better down that way, and got stuck here when something – probably the fangs – knifed every tyre on the vehicles."

"Toby with you?" Elias asked.

"Yep, and a bunch of civilians who figure themselves vampire hunters," Nate said, the smile in his voice not making his face.

Rufus looked at him. The man's tall frame was thin, dark brown hair greying now along the hairline, a lot more lines etched into the weather-roughened skin. "How many you got here?"

"Just over a hundred, mostly women and kids," he said. "They came from Boulder, said that they were freed when the city was attacked, but they're not branded."

"There were groups of people who were working for the demons of their own free will," Rufus told him acerbically. "Did they say what happened to the rest of them?"

Nate shook his head. "The lot of them were shell-shocked when we found them."

In the cafeteria, groups of people were huddled on the floor. By the exterior windows, Rufus saw Toby, the young hunter holding a carbine, ignoring the general cold in a khaki singlet that showed a heavily muscled and broad-shouldered frame. The barrel of the gun lifted slightly in acknowledgement but his eyes didn't leave the window.

There were a few men scattered through the groups, Rufus noted curiously. More kids than anything else. The fearless vampire slayers were standing by the kitchen doors, six of them holding their long chef's knives and cleavers nervously by their sides, none over twenty-five by the looks of it.

"What do you know about these vamps?" Rufus turned to Nate.

"When they ran us in here the first morning – they used the mist from the low ground. The soil's saturated everywhere, every time we get a cold night and some sun in the morning, it rises," he said, dark eyes shifting restlessly around the room. "I thought there were about six or seven of them then. We lost about ten people that night, before we found the school. The next attack there were more."

"So they didn't drain them, they turned them," Elias said.

Nate nodded. "We were better prepared the next time, and there's about ten of them left. Too many for just me and Tobe, and we could hear you guys on the CB, heading this way. Just hoped you'd find us."

Elias lifted a brow at him. "Some hope."

"Not much choice," Nate said, gesturing around the room. "Most of these people can't run, not enough food in the last few weeks."

"Where are your vehicles?"

"Down by that torn-up shed near the bridge."

"You got enough to get all of these folks out?"

"If we can find tyres or get enough time to mend the ones we got, yeah," Nate said with a one-shouldered shrug. "Haven't had any luck so far."

"We'll have to take out the vamps," Elias said, looking at Rufus. "Can't do a running fight with these people, and we'll only lead them back to our own if we try and make a break for it." He looked at Nate. "Any idea on where they're nesting?"

"The boneyard down the road, I think." Nate scratched his eyebrow tiredly. "I thought it was just one of those modern plot ones, you know, no bodies, just crematorium pots, but turns out there's a deep underground vault in the middle. Fucked if I know what happens when the river floods."

Rufus looked away, thinking about that. "Flooding the river might be just what we need to do," he said slowly.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

The office throbbed and bulged, in and out in time with his pulse. Chuck looked around the room uneasily, seeing the colours smear one into the other, the small desk lamp brightening in his eyes until he had to close them, lifting his arm over his face to block it out.

He hadn't had a headache like this since … the memory came back and he started violently, shoving the chair away from the desk, staggering up from it and feeling his way around the end of the desk.

"Chuck? You okay, man?" Mitch's voice sounded a long way away and Chuck nodded, teeth clenching together as the movement exacerbated the pain behind his eyes.

"Need to lie down," he whispered, feeling his way to the long couch that sat in front of the hearth. The fire was lit, he could see the dancing flames through his closed lids. Too bright as well but he was going throw up if he didn't get horizontal in the next few seconds.

"Chuck?" Mitch watched him pitch headfirst onto the couch, shivering as he rolled onto his side, despite the warmth of the fire. He hurried to the end, looking down at Chuck's paper-white face, hands drawn into white-knuckled fists. Chuck did not look okay. Chuck looked a long, long way from anything like okay.

"I'll get Merrin," he said aloud, making the decision and turning for the door. "I'll be right back."

Chuck didn't hear him, lost in the vortex of pain and image and sound that rocketed through his head as the conduit, almost forgotten but still there, opened up. His eyes rolled up into his skull as the vision overtook him and carried him away.

* * *

_**Lake West, Tawas Lake, Michigan**_

"Whaddaya mean you can't go?" Dean stared in frustration at Jo. "You and Maurice and Ty are the only ones who know the place!"

"Which word is giving you trouble, Winchester?" she asked him coolly. "I can't go. Not now."

"Why?"

Giving a long, dramatic sigh, she looked at Ty. Her partner shrugged slightly, smiling.

"Because I'm pregnant," she said, looking back at Dean. "And I'm not risking the baby."

Dean looked at her for a moment, then shifted his gaze to Ty. The younger hunter spread out his hands.

"Oh."

"And Ty's not going anywhere, not for the next nine months," she added, walking to stand beside him. "What about Maurice?"

"Maurice is somewhere up north, looking for survivors," Dean scowled at the floor. "No idea when he'll be back."

"We left the place intact," Ty said pacifically. "Even the plagues won't have done much to the ordnance there. It's not hard to find."

He'd already been over those arguments, Dean thought sourly. He'd wanted someone who'd been there, who could clue him into the layout and the possible booby-traps that Lucifer's demons might've left, if they'd thought the hunters would return for another load.

"Alright, forget it," he said, letting out his breath in an exhale as loud and gusty as Jo's had been. "Boze said you had twenty trainees here? How are they shaping up?"

"Good," Jo said, relieved that the conversation had been dropped. She'd found out the week before and was still going through the ups and downs of what she thought of it, her feelings – hormone-enhanced Bernice had assured her – swinging wildly between a deep, fierce desire to protect her child at all costs, and uncertainty that she was ready for this leap into an adulthood she'd been fighting her mother to establish for the past five years. "They've been doing a lot of the scouting, up north and into the new forests over the last few months, with Ty and Tim and Vince, when he's here, and they're getting there."

"Anything in the forests?"

"Not that anyone's seen so far," she said, frowning. "Why?"

"Not just the good mother who's wandering around," Dean gestured vaguely at her abdomen. "Michigan was always a favourite for wraiths and ghouls, around the lakes."

"Not many bodies or fresh meat for either now. We've got the new protocols in place," Ty said slowly. "Field work finishes an hour before sundown. Everyone's in and checked twice, once through the gate, once into the hall."

"Planting done?"

"Yeah, Dave was insistent on the winter wheat and rye," Jo said dryly. "It's done."

"Good," Dean said distractedly. He'd wanted to head straight for McAlester with Jo and Ty but he'd have to get back to Kansas now, figure out someone else to take. Sam would be agitating to go, he knew. He wasn't sure about that. His little brother had been improving slowly, but he could still see the doubts at the back of his eyes, the fear that he hadn't dealt with. And he needed Sam to keep an eye on things in Lebanon anyway, he told himself. Needed someone who had the same tactical upbringing to watch for the patterns that would show themselves in the event of any kind of planned attack.

"Tell Boze I'm heading back to Kansas," he said to Jo. "I'll check in with him when I get there."

She nodded and stepped closer to Ty as he turned around and walked out of the office. Nothing had changed for Dean, really, she thought a little sadly. He had backup and friends and the loyalty of the people who followed him, who'd follow him anywhere, but the responsibility that had marked him out as different from other guys from the moment she'd first seen him was still there, just as heavy, just as unrelenting.

"He needs someone to help out with running this stuff," Ty remarked, in sync with her thoughts.

"He'd never let anyone do that," she said, not sure how she knew that, just certain of it in her heart.

* * *

_**I-70 W, Missouri**_

The rumble of the engine, the stereo playing over that, the road, cracked and humped, but open filling the windshield ahead of him … Dean glanced to the side. If Sam'd been hunched up in the passenger seat, he could've convinced himself that the last three years had just been a dream. Of course, the growth to either side of the road and the lack of houses or cars or people didn't really support the illusion.

The other thought, the one that lurked in the background most of the time, still nagged at him at times like this. Did he want to go back? People wouldn't have died. Or been possessed in such quantities, tortured, their lives torn to shreds, but did he want to give up what had come from that and pretend it didn't matter?

The hits kept on coming. He had the feeling that nothing, no realignment of the threads of destiny or whatever it was Cas kept telling him about, would ever change that. There was a struggle between the forces of light and darkness going on and neither side would stop until they got what they wanted, and the fallout would be significant as it always was. He had no idea why he and Sam seemed to be at the centre of it. Cas and Jerome could talk about angel genetics and the bloodlines but it seemed to him that there was a lot more going on behind the curtains that had nothing to do with that, that had plotted and planned and schemed to use their family for other reasons, more complex ones, insidious ones. He couldn't see the patterns, the shape of them yet, but he could feel them, that occasional sense of being watched, being judged, by something that never slept in the black stillness of the deepest watches of the night.

He had people to put his back against now. People he could trust. People he cared about. In one way, that was something he would never willingly give up. In another, it brought home to him that if he had those things, there must be a reason for it. And behind that was the sure knowledge that when he cared about people, cared about someone, they either left, or they died. He couldn't think of a single reason why that would change now.

_Everyone here, and in Michigan, is here and alive because of you, because of what you did_. Alex had told him that, a couple of weeks ago, during a meandering conversation about the possibilities of destiny and the way things had worked out. The weight of that responsibility, to these people, to the world, sat no more lightly on him now than it had three years ago, or six or ten.

_I want to stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school, I want Dean to have a home. I want ... I want Mary alive. It's just ... I just want this to be over_. The motel in Salvation and the utter hopelessness in his father's voice. The knowledge that he needed to be stronger, to help his father rid the world of the evil that invaded their lives. The fear that he wasn't going to be strong enough. Had he known then that it would never be over? That something would always crawl out of the darkness to threaten whatever it was he had and force him onto the battlefield again? _Those with the ability to do the job have the responsibility to see that it gets done_. Another touchstone of his life. One he'd believed in for a long time, still did, although he wished that things were different, could be different.

Running the harvesters, hunting for game in the newly grown forests, talking late into the night with Jackson or Bobby or Rufus or Maurice, no shop talk, just conversation about life. Going through the store rooms with Alex, or the ordnance supplies with Franklin, the day-to-day jobs that were all a part and parcel of this life, this new life with its decisions and friends and experiences. It was changing him, he knew. He didn't know how exactly, if it made it easier or harder, but it was changing him from the man he'd been after his father's death, after being raised by an angel, to someone else.

He leaned back against the seat, hands light on the wheel. The temptation was strong to put the tangled mess of his thoughts out of his head, turn up the music and just be – for a while at least. The only trouble was it didn't help.

They'd lost contact with Rufus and Maurice four days ago. That could be for a number of reasons, all of them non-threatening and valid. Bobby'd said that Maurice was looking at a pack of werewolves. That was … unsettling. Because of the bite, they were hard enough to kill anyway; attacking in numbers wasn't going to make it any easier. He thought of the pack that they'd seen in Porter's Mill, drawn there by the Whore. Rufus'd had bullets made up for the M60 he lugged around, and Paul said that a couple of sprays with that had pretty much done the job from behind the barricades. It was something he'd have to talk to Franklin about. Silver was a bitch to make bullets with, the melting point so high that it needed the most skilled people to work with it. He couldn't remember now if Franklin had said anything about useful apprentices.

Jo's condition was a pointed reminder that both the human population and the monster populations were going to be booming in a few short months. There'd been no further contact with the Watchers, or with Peter or any word on how the European hunters were doing. Michel hadn't heard anything for the last two weeks. Again, it didn't mean that something had gone wrong, only that communications were difficult, once line of sight had been passed. He wondered vaguely if they were any techs out there who could get the landlines working again. Even if they had to go back to operators, it'd be a help between Kansas and Michigan. Alex would know, he thought. He'd ask her as soon as he got in.

And that was another thing, another change, another … point of vulnerability that he couldn't face. She didn't say – stay or go. She didn't ask for anything from him. He remembered a lot of times when he'd stayed away from the rooms he'd shared with Lisa because he couldn't face talking or doing anything else, too tired, too filled with the heavy responsibilities that lay over him like a shroud. But that hadn't happened in the last six months. It might've been too early to tell, he thought, frowning at the road that uncurled in front of him. He didn't think so. He was never too tired. Never that tired that he didn't want her, want to be with her, to watch her, listen to her. And she was one of the very few he could talk to without any kind of hesitation, knowing she'd listen, and hear the words, and what lay beneath them, and what lay beneath that as well, knowing that she wouldn't lie, wouldn't sugar-coat an unpalatable truth, wouldn't pretend that everything would work out fine when it plainly wouldn't.

He'd summoned Death. He'd actually threatened that entity to bring her back. But he hadn't said anything about it since then, and she hadn't either. He didn't know what that meant, or why he couldn't get it out of his head, as if there was something there he should've known, should've seen but hadn't. He spent his days careful not to think about her and he didn't know why.

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon**_

The gates stood open, the guards to either side stepping in as the black car pulled up in front of them. Salt. Iron. Silver. Holy water. They nodded, two of Franklin's, Dean thought, and stepped back and he drove through the town which had become a castle, the car growling deeply in first as he avoided the people walking around him and zig-zagged his way to the western bailey and the deep three-sided shelters that lined the northern wall. Turning off the engine, he sat for a moment in the near-silence, listening to the hot metal tick, feeling a measure of relief that he was back. Home.

Alex looked around as he walked into the office, brows rising. "Thought you'd be halfway to Oklahoma by now?"

"Change of plan," he said shortly. "Did you know that Jo was pregnant?"

"No," Alex said, glancing down at the desk top. "But it's not exactly surprising, is it?"

"Surprised me," he said, shaking his head. "Who's around that I can take?"

"Uh, Vince got back yesterday, he's training the juniors this week," she told him. "Sam's free –"

"No, not Sam," he interrupted. "What about the trainees?"

"Joseph, Zoe, Billy and Perry are all on standard rotation this week." She looked down the list of hunters and trainees in Lebanon. "Maggie got back from the recce run to Washington yesterday; she's been up at the library. Bobby's here, by the way, looking for you. I told him you'd back in a few days." Her nose wrinkled up. "He's probably down with Franklin."

"Ellen here with him?"

She shook her head. "No, she's at Lightning Ridge. They moved over while we were in Michigan."

"Can you get Maggie and Billy and Zoe? They'll do," he said abruptly. "Tell them we'll leave in the morning. Did Bobby say what he wanted to talk about?"

"Chuck," she said, closing the files on the desk and following him to the door.

"What about Chuck?"

"I don't know, he didn't go into details."

"Why not?" he asked, turning at the doorway and stopping to look down at her.

She shrugged and walked past him. "I don't know, Dean. He just wanted to talk to you and then he left."

He walked slowly down the hall after her, brows drawn together, turning to go out to the courtyard as she kept going. Alex was kept in the loop about everything, why would Bobby not tell her this?

Franklin had half the bottom of the Eastern Keep and he lengthened his stride down through the narrow tunnel that divided the two sections. There were two trucks they could take in the morning, both ex-Army. Maggie would be a learning curve for the trainees, he thought suddenly, a dry grin curving up one side of his mouth.

The workshop door was open and he could hear the low murmur of voices under an intermittent banging inside, his eyes narrowing as they adjusted to the gloom after the sunshine outside.

"Bobby?"

"Dean, Alex said you'd gone already," Bobby said, turning around and pushing his cap back a little.

"Had to come back," Dean said shortly. "What about Chuck?"

"He's had a vision, he said," Bobby told him, glancing at Franklin who'd put his tools and was listening.

"A vision – you mean a prophet-type vision?" Dean looked at him questioningly. "About what?"

"Ah," Bobby said slowly, nodding toward the door. "It was a bit confusing, might be better if you talked to him yourself." He looked over his shoulder at Franklin. "Can we do the quantities?"

Franklin nodded. "You find me the silver, I'll make up as much as you need. We've got the blast furnace and taps and dies and moulds for everything now, just need the size and the metal and you're good."

"Good, guess that the silverware will've survived everything that's happened, I'll get some teams out."

"For the werewolf packs?" Dean asked as Bobby crowded him out the door.

Bobby nodded. "Rufus made up a case of silver ammo for his, thought we'd better get on and do the same for the bigger guns, especially the keep defences."

"Okay," Dean agreed. "Now what didn't you want to tell me in front of Franklin?"

"The vision was about you and Sam and something to do with Hell," Bobby said quietly, walking with him down to the curtain wall gate tunnel. "I figured it was best if you got the info first, before the whole damned Keep knew about it."

"Why didn't you tell Alex?"

Bobby looked down at the ground uncomfortably. "Didn't know if you wanted her to know the details or not."

Dean stopped walking, turning to look at him. "Why?"

"You didn't want her to know about the vampire –"

"That was –" he cut himself off, looking away in frustration. "That was different. And I was wrong about that," he added, looking back at Bobby. "She knows everything I know. That's the way it is."

"Sure," Bobby said, lifting a shoulder. "You coming or not?"

"I'll get the car and follow you," Dean said, thinking about getting back. "Sam know about this?"

Bobby nodded. "Chuck passed out yesterday morning. Woke up sometime after midnight, Sam was the first one he told."

"Alright, I'll see you there."

He turned away, walking back up to West Keep. He should've asked Bobby if it had been his decision to keep the details from Alex. It sounded more like a call Ellen or Sam might've made. Things were hard enough without keeping this kind of information from her, he thought exasperatedly.

He saw Alex coming down the steps of the Keep and sped up a little as he went to meet her.

"You got a few minutes?"

"Maggie's still at the library, the trainees'll be ready to go at dawn," she told him as she hurried to keep up with his longer stride. "You're still going then, right?"

"Yeah," he said, walking into the shed and opening the car door for her. "Listen, I don't know why Bobby didn't tell you about Chuck –"

Sliding into the passenger seat, Alex shook her head, waiting for him to open his door. "It doesn't matter, there's probably a lot I don't need to –"

He got in, fingers resting on the keys as he looked at her. "No, you need to know everything, everything I do," he told her firmly, turning the key. For a moment the car's roar drowned out any possible conversation in the confines of the shed, then he reversed out, turning to head for the gates.

She looked out the passenger window without responding, and he flicked a glance at her.

"This started after the vampire thing, right?"

"Around then, yeah," she said.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He looked at the road, dodging people as they stepped out in front of him. "What else have you been kept out of?"

She looked at him then, smiling slightly. "I don't know. It's not that a big a deal, there's a lot of stuff that I just thought was hunter business, you know," she said lightly. "And I didn't tell you because I thought you were the one who'd given the instructions."

"And that didn't worry you?" he asked, an edge of disbelief along his voice. "Why didn't you ask me? Check with me, at least?"

"Ask what?" She shrugged. "Ask you about information I didn't know I wasn't getting? I only found about it because Merrin came in to find out why Kim wanted to do some cultures on werewolf tissue and whether we had colloidal silver in stock." She turned in the seat to look at him. "I just figured there was a lot of stuff you didn't think I needed to know."

He scowled at a group standing in the middle of the road, watching them scurry to one side as the engine revved slightly, unsure if they were still talking about the Keep business or if the conversation had slid sideways to more personal ground.

"Well, there isn't," he said, approaching the gates. The guards looked surprised to seem him heading out again but stepped clear quickly. "Anything I don't think you need to know, I mean."

Alex looked at his profile as they drove through the gates and he turned left. She wondered if he meant that.

* * *

_**St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City**_

The vaults had been carved from the soft rock, centuries ago, the steps leading down worn deep in the centres from the passage of many feet. Isabeau walked slightly in front and to one side of Elena, holding the burning torch high above her head as they advanced slowly. They could hear the slurring of feet on the stone in the tunnels below them, smell the faint reek of rotten flowers and rotting meat on the airs that kept the catacombs ventilated. They were here, somewhere, Elena thought coldly, and it would be too easy to become trapped down here, picked off at the monsters' leisure.

"It's widening ahead," Isabeau breathed, her voice transmitted to the earpieces of the wireless headsets.

"Francois, break left and cover; Marc to the right," Elena order, equally softly.

There was no chance of being able to take them by surprise or slip past. She tightened her grip on the sabre she carried, the slightly curving blade razor-sharp and lifted, ready for the attack.

Isabeau swung the torch and threw it into the centre of the chamber, following it fast. She was hit from the side, a fragmented glimpse of pale skin, dark hair and eyes and long, white teeth, glistening in the firelight then the vampire was dragged from her, a high-pitched, wavering moan echoing from the stone walls. Rolling to her knees, she stared in disbelief at the grey-skinned, red-eyed creature wrestling with the vampire two feet to her left.

The torch-light flickered violently around the stone, casting shifting shadows over the mass of combatants, staggering and howling and moaning and shrieking in the small space, ragged clothing whipping around over slipping skin, blood-darkened fangs and rotted teeth savagely clamping onto pouched, mottled skin and smooth, hard skin alike.

"_Fils de putain!_" Francois swung his machete and a head went flying into the wall, sagging skin hiding eyes and mouth as it hit with a wet crack. "_Casse-toi, salop!_"

Elena spun around, the sabre slicing through the hand that had gripped her shoulder, embedding itself in the chest as she lifted a foot and shoved the ghoul off her blade and watching dazedly as it stumbled back into a vampire, turning on it with a snarl.

"_Succhiasangue filth! La nostra preda! Il nostro!_"

The vampire grinned and opened its mouth, tearing a mouthful from the ghoul's face and spitting it on the floor.

"_Comedenti mortuorum, praeda omnis nostra est_," it crooned, the crack of the ghoul's neck barely heard under the noise of the melee.

"ELENA!"

She turned around at the shout, familiar but a voice she had not expected to hear again.

"Out! Now!" Peter crouched by the tunnel entrance on the far side of the chamber, a long cylinder held in his hands, goggles covering half his face.

"_Tout le monde dehors!_" she called, swinging the sabre to cut her way across to the hunter. "_Vite! Vite!_"

Peter slammed the end of the flare on the floor and threw it across the chamber, the argentine light growing brighter and brighter as it hit the floor, hissing and smoking and bleeding colour and shadow from the stone, burning the vampires and blinding the ghouls.

Ducking his head, Francois grabbed Isabeau, thrusting her ahead of him as he saw Marc and Jean stumbling away from the centre of the chamber, eyes screwed shut and hands outstretched to find the walls. The vampires were doubled-over, falling to the floor and kneeling, arms over their faces as they crawled away from the flare. Peter, goggles darkened to black, reached forward and pulled Jean through the entrance, and set off the second flare, leaving it at the mouth of the tunnel. They would burn for ten minutes or more, emitting ultraviolet strong enough to give the vampires a good case of sunburn, he thought. He dragged the goggles up, settling them over his forehead and gestured down the tunnel.

"Keep going, this way takes us to the library," he snapped at Elena. "They are not the only things to haunt the catacombs now."

* * *

_**Chamberlain, South Dakota**_

The sun had burned off most of the mist in the town and from the woods on the other side of the river. Rufus looked down the long levee, gaze sharpening on the shaped charges that were visible only as small heaps of earth along and over the hump. There had been a couple of vamps still lurking in the shadows of the building as they'd come out, their bodies lying headless now, but it looked like the rest had retreated until nightfall.

He glanced back toward the bridge and bank where the interstate crossed the river. Elias was almost invisible in the patch of dead reeds and shrubs close to the water's edge. The two lines of charges would take down the bridge, Rufus thought, looking back up the bank. And the water would back up and flow in once the levee was blown. The lay of the land worked for them, a long gentle slope to the nearest buildings and the graveyard beyond them.

"Blow it," he said softly, lifting and dropping his arm.

Daisy-chained together the explosives went off in a staccato burst along the bridge, and in a deeper cannonade across the levee. He watched Elias scramble back from the river's edge, turning and running up the slope as the bridge supports fell into the water, sending a monstrous backwash up river, and the stable bank of the levee was shattered. The water rushed upriver … and down, following the path of least resistance and seeping slowly at first, then faster down the new channel toward the town.

Standing, Rufus started walking along the high ground toward the buildings, hearing a rustle in the grasses behind him as Jack climbed the bank and followed him. The explosions should've woken the vamps, but it wasn't a sure thing. Christine and Elias would be at the cemetery by now and the sunlight, bright and clear for once, would work in their favour. They could start the civilians across the second, smaller bridge as soon as the butcher work was finished.

"Not bad for an old man, eh?" Rufus said quietly to Jack.

"No, you got your moments, man," Jack agreed with a smile, pulling the machete out of its sheath. "Not many, but you've definitely got 'em."

"Ingrate."

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Dean saw the look Ellen flashed at Sam as he came into the library, Alex behind him. He'd talk to them later, he decided, looking at Chuck sitting at the long table, head propped up with one hand. Chuck looked like he had in '09, crap from head to foot.

"Visions again?" he asked him, sitting down in the chair to his right.

"Yeah," Chuck said softly, the volume indicative of how his head was feeling, Dean thought.

"Like the last time?"

"Pretty much," the writer admitted. "Like watching it. I got it all down."

He pushed a thick sheaf of paper across the desk toward Dean and closed his eyes. Dean picked it up, looking up at his brother.

"You read this?"

Sam nodded. "Still centred around us."

Dean picked up the first page and started to read, passing each page to Alex as he worked his way through the stack. The room was silent as he read, and he forced himself to concentrate on the pages, instead of looking at the faces that he could feel staring at him.

"Not your usual tight prose, Chuck," he said, passing the last page to Alex and looking at the writer.

"Bite me," Chuck said tiredly.

Dean gave him a lopsided grin, and turned to look at Bobby. "Seems like the Grigori are going to be a problem sooner than we thought."

Bobby nodded. "Has to be them. No idea how they met with that Crowley fella, though."

Jerome glanced at Katherine, who shrugged and looked away. "The gates to Hell can be opened by a blood key."

"First I heard of it," Bobby said, turning to look at him.

"It was a well-guarded secret," Katherine said dryly. "Black magic, forbidden knowledge."

"It isn't the only way to get into Hell, either," Davis said heavily. "At least according to legend."

Sam's brow creased up tightly. "What?"

"The psychopomps can lead a mortal into the other planes," the professor said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "Those who guide the dead to their next destination."

"I never found any –" Sam started to say hotly, shooting an accusing glance at Bobby.

"Forget it," Dean cut him off. "Not the real problem here."

"The Grigori – or the nephilim – are not affected by the warding we have around the settlements, are they?" Alex looked at him.

He shook his head. "No, we don't have angel proofing, and I have no clue what the hell to use for half-breed proofing." Looking at Chuck, he asked, "What's the time frame on this, Chuck?"

"After winter," Chuck said, gesturing vaguely at the pages. "The passes through the Rockies are going to be closed before Christmas, I think. I could see them, snowed-in somewhere, Idaho, I think."

"So they can't zap around, like the angels?"

"No, they have to get around the same way we do."

"That helps," Sam said. "Gives us time."

Alex looked down at the slim sheaf of papers she held. It read like a story, a chilling one at that. Dean and Sam were on the road somewhere, their location unspecified, and the fallen angels, along with at least some of their children and a demon army led by a mysterious man with enormous power, marched across Nebraska toward Kansas. Chuck had been generous with the details, too generous, she thought with a shiver. The army were possessed humans, gathered along the way between Washington state and Wyoming. They didn't have the time to get there and pull the people out before winter – an unusually severe winter, according to the writer – blocked the roads and made travel near impossible.

"This isn't going to go down like this anyway," Dean said and Alex looked up to find his gaze on her. "There's no way I'm anywhere but here knowing this is going to happen."

Sam glanced at Chuck. "That usually doesn't work out –"

"Yeah, well, this time it is," Dean cut him off. "There's nothing that's gonna change it." He stood up, and looked from Sam to Bobby. "Change of plans for McAlester too."

"What?"

"We need some of their specialised stuff, not just the weapons and ammo," Dean said. "Franklin'll know if they have it there."

"Like what?" Bobby asked quizzically.

"Those all-terrain vehicles they use in the artic stations, for one," he said, with a shrug. "If we can move around when everyone else is stuck, it'll make a difference."

Ellen looked at him, seeing the decision already made. He would take the fight away from the population, if he could. She turned to look at Jerome. "We've got information here, and in the other chapters, Jerome. Is it likely we can find protection against the fallen and the half-breeds here?"

"Possible. Yes. Likely? I don't know," he said. "The order tracked the Grigori up until World War II successfully. From there, however, they seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth."

Davis looked at him. "Vanished or split up and started new groups?"

"I don't know," Jerome said, brows drawing together. "Why?"

"Because Hitler was obsessed with the occult for a period of time between '38 and '44," he said slowly. "Perhaps the reason was that they offered him their services?"

"The Thule society?"

"It's a possibility, isn't it?"

"The Thule society?" Sam looked at Davis. "What were they?"

"Aaron, Marla," Jerome turned in his chair to look at the two initiates. "Pull every file and book relating to the Thules – they should be on Level Three."

Nodding, the two left the library. Jerome turned back to see Bobby, Ellen, Sam, Dean and Alex looking at him expectantly.

"The Thules were a group who formed in 1911, ostensibly as occultists who were researching the origins of the Aryan race. They had a lot of theories and myths and virtually no facts. In 1919 they originated the _Deutsche Arbeiterpartei_ – the German Worker's Party –"

"By the end of 1920, that party had become the _Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei_, the National Socialist German Worker's Party," Katherine said acerbically. "More commonly known as the Nazi Party."

"They became Nazis?" Dean looked at her questioningly.

"Among other things," Jerome cut in. "They were never much interested in the politics, only the power that they could see was coming. Power to further their studies in various aspects of necromancy and black magic without restraint or question."

"An' Hitler gave 'em that power?" Bobby asked dryly.

Jerome glanced at him and nodded. "Along with all the resources they needed."

"Didn't anyone fight them?" Ellen asked.

"Many did," Jerome said. "The order has files on a dozen groups in Europe who fought against them, both openly and through sabotage … the Jews, the Rom, the Magyar … those are the files that Aaron and Marla will bring up, as well as the details on the society itself."

"Alright," Dean said. "And?"

"And after the war, they slipped away like ghosts," Jerome said heavily. "They were never found. Doppelgängers were created, used to fool the authorities into thinking they had captured or killed the most publicly known."

"Doppelgängers?" Sam flicked a look at his brother.

"Creations," Bobby said shortly. "Supposedly from something of the original person, an exact copy could be produced with a certain spell."

"Yes," Katherine agreed. "And programmed to do what the original person wanted it to do."

Dean rubbed a hand over his face. "Alright, so the fallen angels played around with the Nazi party until they lost the war, then made doubles of themselves to take the fall and disappeared?" He looked around the table. "Why are they joining up with the demons and attacking us?"

"Looking for the same thing Hell is, I suppose," Jerome said. "The Word of God."

"Why do they think we have it?"

"I don't know if they think we have the tablets," Jerome said slowly, casting a fleeting glance at Chuck. "But they were angels once, and they probably know that the prophet is here."

"So what?"

"Only the prophet can read the Word," Davis said, smiling a little derisively. "At least, according to the heretical texts on the subject."

"So Chuck's the target?" Dean asked. At the end of the table, Chuck turned white.

"It seems most likely."

* * *

_**Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

Rona looked around the street as the chilly dawn light spread across the sky. There were a dozen bodies lying there, riddled with bullet holes, the blood drying on bare, blue-tinted skin. The assault rifle in her hands was fully loaded, and she carried it with her finger over the trigger guard, acutely aware that werewolves who didn't need the full moon, might not mind the sun either.

Drew and Alison moved through the dead, nodding as they recognised the survivors who'd been turned when the monsters had first attacked. Maurice watched them, impressed by the control both had over themselves. Drew Ryan had been a Detroit cop, Alison had told him the previous evening before the attack had started. She'd been a high school in the southside of Chicago. It went a little way to explain their pragmatic approach to problems.

He looked up as Lee and Danielle drove the buses along the road from the square. They'd been lucky. The high school had its own small fleet and all of them had been locked up tight in a steel and brick shed. Four of the people here claimed experience in driving a bus and they followed the trainees to the front of the building, giving the bodies a wide clearance.

"Let's get everyone loaded," he called out to Drew. "We'll be there before nightfall if we get going now."

He hoped that would be the case. They had two hundred and thirteen people now, protected by two hunters, two trainees and a few civilians who could handle themselves. He couldn't risk stop and looking around for more people, not until they got these folks safely to Kansas and within the Keep walls.

"Maurice?"

He turned around, seeing Tilly behind him. "All your people ready, Tilly?"

She nodded, her gaze drawn to the bodies beside the building. "In the books, uh, werewolves only ever hunt on the full moon."

"Yeah," Maurice said, wondering how he was going to explain this. "Normally, that's true. Things have changed a little."

Her voice dropped lower and she leaned closer to him. "There are at least twenty pregnant women in our group, and I think there's probably more."

"What?" he asked, brows rising. "Since when?"

"Four weeks ago, I think, just before the Indian summer ended," she said, looking past him to the people getting onto the buses. "Ray called it moon madness, but I thought it was just people trying to let go of the tension."

He watched the colour rise up her neck and sighed. "We've got doctors, in Lebanon," he said, hoping that would be reassuring. "They'll look after everyone."

"That's not – you know the statistical improbability of a conception rate like that in a group like ours?"

He blinked at her. "No."

"It's astronomical," she told him tersely. "And Alison told me that there are at least ten, probably more, who could well be pregnant in her group as well."

_Great_, Maurice thought. _That ought to give Kim and Merrin something to do come summer_.

"I was wondering if the … changes …" She gestured to the bodies. "And these pregnancies might be related?"

_Oh, they'll definitely be related_, Maurice thought sourly. How, that was anybody's guess, but he had no doubt that they were. "They might be," he admitted.

"Do you think the pregnancies are going to be normal?"

_A topic he knew nothing about_. "I don't know, Tilly. If the … uh … conception was normal, I can't see why they'd be different. But … um … when we get home, the docs can check everyone out."

"How?"

"We're pretty well equipped, even for the end of the world," he said, hoping it would reassure her.

"I worked in the neo-natal unit of Jefferson in Philly, before," she said. "We were seeing a rise in pre-term and special needs care even then. I'm just worried –"

Maurice nodded. "We don't know what's changed, Tilly. I mean, look around, everything has been growing way out of its normal patterns for months now."

"That's what I mean!" she said to him. "If the trees and the animals are growing like that –"

"We'll be in Lebanon in about eight-nine hours," Maurice cut her off. "I'll take you straight to Dr Sui when we get there, okay?"

She dragged in a deep breath, wrestling with herself for control. "Okay."

He watched walk down to the buses and lifted his gaze to the northern horizon. The last few weeks, the frosts had been hard and bitter. Along the rising ground to the north he could see the clouds building up. It was a little early for a big storm, but they'd be down in Kansas before it could reach them, he thought.

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

The small office was warm, the flames licking over the logs in the hearth, and despite its air of organised chaos, somehow soothing. Dean sat in the comfortable armchair, a stack of books piled haphazardly on the edge of the desk beside him, the one in front of him forgotten, his attention on the maple-gold hair on the other side, hiding Alex's face as she made the calculations based on the projections of the numbers of healthy, fertile women in the five fortified settlements and the last figures from Jackson on the harvest.

She lifted her chin from the cup of her hand, pushing back the curls from her face as she focussed on him.

"Well?"

"So far as food is concerned, we'll be fine. Not just for this year, but probably for the foreseeable future, because the land here is good enough to give heavy returns and we have, in real terms, a virtually unlimited supply of it," she said, gesturing at the ledgers to one side. "Accommodation is going to be another matter, especially if Rufus and Maurice have found more people."

"What about moving some people over to Michigan?"

"Same story there, Dean." She exhaled and closed the books. "Barring the usual statistical problems – which I don't think are going to apply, by the way – it looks like we'll double our population by next summer. And that's just on single births. If the fertility effect from this goddess is really powerful, we could be looking at twins or triplets as well as, or instead of single births."

They both turned to look at the narrow windows as the sounds of vehicles penetrated the thick walls.

"Alex, there's – oh, sorry," Maria said, as she pushed open the door and saw them. "Eric sent me to tell you there's a long line of vehicles heading our way from the north."

"How many?" Dean got up and looked at her.

"More than fifty. Adam and Felice are stationed on the outskirts of Hastings, they sent in the report."

"Friendly?"

"Unknown," she said. "But there's about ten school buses coming with them."

"Rufus," Dean said, mouth quirking up to one side as he looked back at Alex.

"We'll come down to the gates, Maria," Alex said. "Thanks."

She followed Dean out and down the hall. "That was pretty quick, wasn't it?"

"Must've found a few," Dean said with a slight shrug. "Hopefully leaving less for whoever's coming."

They walked out of the keep and along the road, joining a stream of people who were also heading to the gates.

"Passed Lightning Oak three minutes ago," Eric called down when he saw Dean.

"It'll take a while to get everyone through the tests," Dean muttered to Alex as he walked up to the gate. "Where do we send them?"

"The East Keep," Alex told him, gesturing to the other closed in court. "Liev finished the floors two weeks ago and they can take two hundred. The rest to Woodland, they're only a quarter capacity."

"What about Michigan?"

"Later, maybe," she said distractedly. "I'd rather get skills and details here and then send them on."

He looked down at her as she seemed to sway in place for a second, her eyes closing. The moment of whatever it was passed and she looked around as if nothing had happened. He wondered if he should ask about it when the first vehicle pulled up in front of the gates and he saw Rufus' bright smile through the grimy windshield.

* * *

Sam sat by the fire in the keep hall, looking at the people filling the large space. He turned as his brother came up beside him.

"Another three hundred and sixty, give or take a few," Dean said, dropping into the chair beside Sam and looking over at the small knot of men surrounding Bobby and Ellen. Rufus had brought back six more hunters. Maurice had found a woman who had taught herself and her group how to hunt from Chuck's books, apparently.

"Who the guys with Bobby?" Sam asked curiously.

"Hunters," Rufus said, walking up behind them.

"Would we know them?" Sam leaned past his brother as Rufus took the chair on the other side of the fire.

"Maybe," he said. "The dark, shifty-looking guy, that's Kelly Kowalski. He came down from Quebec when the virus was released, looking for anyone. Canada got hit pretty hard apparently. He was in O'Neill when we came through Nebraska, running out of ammo and surrounded by skinwalkers," Rufus leaned forward in the chair, looking at the group. "Next to him is Nate Winslow. Knew your dad. He was hunting in Mexico. The guy who looks like he's bench-pressing three hundred is Toby Bradford. Born in Georgia, grew up in Texas."

"What about the girl?" Dean looked at the lean, dark girl standing next to Bobby.

"That's Win, Moses Johnson's little girl," Rufus said. "You might've met him with your Dad at Peggie's, back in the old days?"

"I don't remember him," Sam said, looking at Dean. After a moment, Dean shook his head as well.

"And the other two?" Dean looked at the men on the other side of the woman. One was very tall, lanky, hair thinning back from a high forehead. The other was shorter, broad-shouldered and wiry, the features of the hard face looking like they'd been carved from hardwood by a skilled but time-short sculptor. Thick, auburn hair fell down to his shoulders and a short beard covered his jaw and cheeks.

"The tall one's Herb Tucker," Rufus said. "Worked with Moses and took over looking out for Win when Moses was killed. The redhead is Elias Story."

"Why didn't we find these guys?" Sam looked at Rufus.

"Well, mostly they had their territories and they kept to them," Rufus said, shrugging. "If the roadhouse hadn't been torched after your dad died, you might've seen them there from time to time."

"But you know them, you and Bobby and Ellen," Dean questioned him.

"Yeah, well before the gate in Wyoming opened, and all that crap that followed that, we kept in touch mostly. Afterwards, it got a lot harder, and everyone was that much busier – you two included," Rufus said pragmatically. "By the time Pestilence released the virus; most of the surviving hunters just found someplace to dig in and stayed put until the croats began to move to the coasts."

The fire in the big hearth flared as a downdraft moaned down the chimney. Outside the keep's thick concrete and stone walls, snow began to fall, small, hard, icy pellets at first, pattering against the walls and roofs, rattling on the oilskins of the guards who walked along the battlements.


	6. Chapter 6 Winter Solstice

**Chapter 6 Winter Solstice**

* * *

_**December 2012. West Keep, Kansas**_

The scrape of shovels and the soft thuds of the removed snow echoed off the curtain wall as Dean walked down the cleared path between the two towers. Wrapped from head to foot in whatever spare winter clothing Alex, Maria and Jeff had been able to come up with, the shovellers were anonymous, standing aside as he moved past, resuming the widening of the path when he'd gone. They'd had twelve inches of snow last night, and in the closed-in baileys, it had drifted well over head-height, the bitter cold freezing the mounds as their weight pushed the air out.

The tunnel between the two keeps was at least a couple of degrees warmer, sloppy with slush and loud with the sound of trickling water escaping from the churned up snow and mud down through the wide drains that led out to the fields beyond the walls. Still cold enough for his breath to be icy in his lungs, he thought cheerlessly, splashing across a drain and emerging into the frigid air of the east courtyard.

Each one of the four enclosed baileys, dividing the defences between the two keeps, was large, almost a thousand feet long and slightly over half that in width. Another group of anonymous people shovelled the path on this side as well, making throughways from the keep to the tunnel, and to the buildings that lined the high walls.

"Franklin!" Dean grunted through the frozen-over collar pulled up around his face as he stomped his feet in the entrance of the ex-soldier's building. "You in there?"

"Here," Franklin roared out from the back. "Come all the way back."

Behind the vehicles parked in the entrance, and the walls of shelving and racks of tools, the interior had been divided into several big workshops, all high-ceilinged and well-ventilated for the work Franklin did there.

Two metal drums were cherry-red with heat, and the relative warmth of the workshop made his eyes water and his nose run as he walked to the benches that lined the back wall.

"What have we got that's going to get through this?" Dean asked without preamble, putting his back to the nearer of the open drum fires.

Franklin glanced around at him, setting down the fine callipers and shaking his head. "Not much," he said doubtfully. "You still thinking of going down to McAlester?"

"We have to," Dean said, looking with interest at the bench top and the casings that Franklin was working on. "We need those vehicles. And a lot more artillery if Chuck's vision is right."

"Well, you're in luck so far as the susvees are concerned. I know McAlester kept at least four of them to send up to Alaska as replacements for the Haggslunds. You should be able to get a reasonable load in them, and they'll bring you home okay."

"And getting there?"

"With the freeze, there'll be a lot of ice," he said with a sniff. "Take the Jeep. You'll get five into it, and one of 'em can bring it back. It's high enough to get over most problems, four-wheel drive and has plenty of weight. You'll need to shovel your way through any drifts anyhow. Tell Connor to set you up – we got snow tyres and the heavy chains in the shop, ready to go."

"Thanks," Dean said dryly. "Anything we're especially low on?"

"Mines," Franklin said, turning back to the bench. "Anything we can set off remotely would be good, no pressure mines – and tell Ryan we need new lookout towers in the forests to the north and west asap, the ones they built six months ago are already too low for the tree growth."

"Yeah, okay," Dean said, turning away.

"Dean," Franklin said, looking over his shoulder at the younger man. "You talked to Jackson or Riley about this weather?"

"No. Why?"

"Might be nothing." Franklin shrugged. "Just seems like a big fall for this early. Jackson's been around here a long time, thought he might have an opinion."

Dean looked at him, a faint frown drawing his brows together. "On a freak snowstorm? We had a few big ones in Michigan last year, Franklin."

"Yeah," the older man admitted. "That bothered me then as well."

"I'll talk to them," Dean said, not sure what he was going to ask the farmers.

"Good." Franklin shivered slightly as he turned back to the bench.

* * *

The bedroom was in darkness, the fire nothing but coals and slowly rising curls of smoke in the hearth when Dean came in. He looked at the drawn curtains and the still hump under the bedcovers and walked around the bed.

"Hey."

Reaching out, he laid a hand lightly on Alex's shoulder. It was mid-afternoon and he'd spent almost an hour searching the keep for her.

"Alex?"

"Mm-hmmm?" She rolled over, looking at him through half-closed eyes. "What is it?"

"You okay?"

Opening her eyes a little wider, he watched her gaze flick to the clock beside the bed. "Yeah, just didn't get a good night's sleep."

He'd been up late the previous night, and hadn't noticed that she'd had trouble sleeping. In fact, she'd been so deeply asleep when he'd finally made it to bed that she hadn't stirred at all.

"You're heading out now?" she asked, pushing herself upright and rubbing a hand over her eyes.

"Yeah," he said distractedly, wondering if he should be worried about her. "Taking Rufus, Nate, Toby and Jack, and Billy to bring back the car."

"I guess there's no time-frame on this trip?"

"Nothing accurate," he agreed. "I'm just hoping we're not going to be snow-shoeing it down there."

Alex yawned and shook her head. "Be careful."

He watched her eyes slip shut again. "Alex, you sure you're okay?"

"Just tired," she murmured drowsily. "That's all."

He shifted closer to her and she opened her eyes again, looking up at him.

"Did you need me to do something before you go?"

"No," he said, leaning forward and dropping a light kiss on her forehead. "No, go back to sleep."

She nodded and rolled over, away from him, and he felt a flutter in his stomach. _Do you … still_, he wondered? This wasn't exactly the way he'd pictured saying goodbye to her.

Getting up, he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him, the flutter still there, uncertainty making him hesitate. _People get tired_, he told himself forcefully, walking across the living room to the front door. _Doesn't mean anything's changed_. But the feeling that something had … had changed without him noticing it … lurked around the edges of his thoughts.

* * *

The Jeep was parked in front of the keep steps and he walked down to it slowly, noticing absently that everyone was there, waiting for him, chains already half-filled with snow, gleaming dully in the flat grey light.

"You okay?" Rufus said, walking around the front of the car, his eyes narrowing as he took in the darkness of Dean's eyes, the edge he could see in the tightness of the muscles around his mouth.

"Yeah," Dean said, looking at him and nodding. "Yeah, we got everything?"

"Loaded for bear," Rufus confirmed, getting into the car and watching Dean get into the driver's seat. "You get some bad news or something?"

"No." He twisted the key and the engine rumbled into life. "No."

Shrugging inwardly, Rufus pulled the map from the glove box and looked again at the twisting route they'd marked out, sticking to the landscape where drifts would be the least likely.

"You still want to bypass Wichita and Tulsa?"

"Yeah," Dean said, glancing down at the map.

He turned the wheel and sent a rooster-tail of snow spurting up behind him, the shovelled path narrower than the wheel base.

"Don't need any extra distractions for this trip."

"You're the boss," Rufus said.

Dean made a derisory noise in his throat and slowed as the gates opened with their approach.

* * *

_**Catacombs, Vatican City, Rome**_

The tunnel dipped slightly and Elena ducked her head, following Andante down the narrow stairs.

"'Ow the 'ell did you come 'ere, Peter?" she asked, bracing her hands against the walls to either side as her foot slid slightly on the moisture-slick stone steps.

"I was in Jordan," Peter said, glancing back at her. "I got the coast and came by boat."

"Did you see Luc, at the mouth of the Tiber?"

"No, I left my boat up the coast and came to the river closer to the city," he said. "There is a canal – more of a drain, really, that leads through the lowest vaults from the river. We'll get out that way."

"You spoke to the _Irin_?"

He nodded, slowing as the tunnel widened. "They are looking for a trap box for the goddesses."

He held up a hand and the hunters stopped, standing silently. All of them heard the metallic rasp over the stone, echoing softly in the rock tunnel.

Peter stepped soundlessly back up to the step to Elena, pressing his lips against her ear. "I found the body of a vermithrax in upper catacombs," he breathed. "And traces of others."

She turned her head so that her mouth was next to his ear. "Young?"

He nodded once. "Six, possibly more. There was a nest under the libraries. The shell fragments were recent."

Elena's breath gusted out. "We carry mirrors, but they're small –"

"So far as I can tell them, they're keeping to these two levels," Peter said, his breath warm against her skin. "I didn't see them coming up, but I could hear them. Their sight is bad, taste and smell and hearing are much stronger. We might be able to get through unseen. If we're careful."

She tapped his shoulder twice to let him know she'd understood, and turned to lean close to Isabeau, telling the young woman what Peter had told her.

The sound had gone and they crept down the stairs, waiting by the wider tunnel opening for five minutes before crossing the junction and heading down again.

* * *

_**US 177 S, Oklahoma**_

The hilly ground began to flatten out and Dean turned his head, feeling the stiffness in his shoulders and back, the vibration through the wheel from the chains over the buried concrete making driving a bitch of a job. Snow-goggles covered his eyes, the glare from the unrelenting white blanket that covered everything as far as he could see too tiring without them. He slowed as he saw the faint mauve shadow at the base of the drift, hearing the muttered complaints from the backseat with a slight grin. It was the fifteenth drift they'd had to dig through in the last four hours.

The Jeep came to a stop and Billy, Jack and Nate climbed out, yanking the deep snow shovels from the back and spreading out as they walked up to the base of the drift in front of the car.

Rufus leaned back, pulling a small flask from his jacket pocket and unscrewing it. He swallowed a mouthful and offered it to Dean.

"Haven't seen a fall like this in long time," he remarked, looking around as Dean tipped the flask up and let the whiskey run down his throat, leaving a warm blaze in his stomach. "Not since '67. And not in December, man. February, March, maybe but no way December in Okie."

Dean looked at him. "You sound like Jackson."

The back of his neck prickled suddenly, and he straightened in the seat, looking around, his hand on the door-handle automatically.

"What?"

"Ssh." He pushed the door open, pulling the rifle from the sling on the door, scanning the featureless white mounds and hollows around them.

On the other side of the car, Rufus reached under the dash and pulled out his shotgun, opening his door and stepping out, the barrel of the gun raised.

"What?" he asked Dean again.

"I don't know," Dean said shortly, glancing at the three men working furiously with the shovels ahead of him.

The movement was very slight, but his peripheral vision caught it anyway and he turned his head sharply to look at the deeper shadow beneath the upturned, snow-covered wreck forty yards from the road, separating shadow from shape, and colour from colour. The huge blunt head became obvious a second before the big cat leapt out from behind the snowbank, his shout and its guttural snarl tangled.

Billy was the closest and he turned, the shovel in his hands rising sharply and instinctively as the load of snow hit the tiger in the face a second before it knocked him down.

"Get clear!" Dean roared at Jack and Nate, both men diving and rolling to the other side of the road, giving both shooters a clear field. Ignoring Billy's wretched scream, Dean put the first shot into the thick neck behind the ear, lifting the rifle to shoulder-height as he heard the concussive retort of the shotgun. The tiger turned, snarling furiously and leapt for Dean as he worked the bolt. Rufus' shell hit the ribs, knocking the animal sideways and Dean jumped clear, backing to the end of the Jeep to draw it further from Billy. Standing three and a half feet at the shoulder, the cat was huge, and he watched it respectfully as it rolled to its feet, yellow-gold eyes fixed on him.

"Dean!"

"I got it," he shouted back at Rufus. "Get Billy."

"Christ, no!" Nate yelled. "Behind you!"

Dean heard the crunch and squeak of the snow and dropped instantly, rolling under the Jeep, the flash of thick, striped white fur filling his vision as the second cat crouched and swiped a paw under the vehicle. He heard Rufus shooting, the pump action blasting shot after shot at one or the other of the animals, the sharp yap-yap of Nate's automatic and the frenzied growls of the tigers as they kept their focus on getting him. He saw one twisting away from the side of the car, paws crunching on the snow as it came around the rear and swore, scrambling out from under the chassis and reaching up for the door. He swung it open as he saw the head clear the back corner, jacknifing up and throwing himself inside as the cat accelerated, the door slammed shut and the high-pitched screak of the long claws as they skated down the metal.

On the other side, the smaller of the two tigers was lying on its side, flanks rising and falling rapidly, a dozen red-rimmed holes down the length of the long, powerful body. His head snapped back as he felt the Jeep rock, seeing the male on its hind feet now, thick white belly fur filling the passenger side window completely and claws scrabbling across the metal roof. He felt them catch on something, the car tilt and rock and threw himself across to the driver's side to get more weight there, as the tiger's muscles bunched under the thick pelt and he felt the Jeep list to the side, the driver's side wheels lifting off the ground. The snarling escalated into a full-throated roar as Rufus and Nate shot at it, then the animal fell backwards, off the shoulder, and its weight dragged the car over the edge and down the bank, landing on top of it, sliding down on its side with the animal underneath. Flicking the safety on the rifle, Dean jammed a hand against the roof, bracing himself through the bangs and jarring jerks until the car stopped, half-canted onto its roof at the bottom.

"Dean!"

He picked up the rifle and forced the driver's door open, looking at the bloody trail the Jeep had left of the tiger as it had come down from the road.

"Okay!" he shouted back, waving his gun as he climbed out and jumped the six foot drop to the side of the slope. He looked back at the Jeep, which was more or less intact, except for the two wheels that had taken the brunt of the slide and fall. Both were bent in directions that were not usually possible for the car. He sighed, and turned to climb back up the bank.

"What the fuck?" he asked Rufus as the older hunter extended a hand and pulled him the last couple of feet.

"Siberian," Rufus said unhelpfully. "Must have gotten free from a private or public zoo sometime."

"So now we got exotic carnivores as well as our usual ones?"

"Looks like."

"How's Billy?" He walked fast to Nate, kneeling beside the boy in the snow.

"Not good," Nate said. "Jack, take the gun and get down to the Jeep and get the kit."

Dean dropped to his knees next to the other man, looking at the deep claw gouges that ran from under the collarbone on the left side to the hip on the right, seeing the cartilage over the ribs through the shredded flesh, the purplish-pink gleam of internal organs through the horrific rents in the skin and muscle of the boy's abdomen. He didn't need to be told that the animal's claws had probably deposited a crap-load of debris inside the boy, that the wounds would be impossible to clean out and keep clean, or to keep still, with what they had with them. Billy was twenty-two, strong and fit and healthy. Those were the only advantages he had going for him.

"We're going on foot from here," he told Nate and Rufus quietly. "Jeep's not fixable."

Nate looked down at the boy and nodded. "Need a travois."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Rufus, get the axes, take Nate and see if you can find a couple of saplings. We can use the sleeping bags for the sling. Snowshoes are in the back."

Rufus nodded and turned away, passing Jack as he struggled up the bank with the medical kit.

"Is he going to be okay?" Jack looked down at the mess of his friend's abdomen, his face screwing up as he took in the injuries.

"You're the paramedic," Dean said tiredly. "We'll do our best."

Nate got to his feet, following Rufus down the bank to the car.

"Those were tigers, right?" Jack said, his face hardening as he pulled on gloves and took scissors from the kit, starting to cut away Billy's clothing.

"Yep."

"And we're in Oklahoma, right?"

Dean's mouth quirked a little. "Yep. Something to look forward to."

"Zoos?"

"Or private owners, I guess."

"I need you to help, keep him completely still and straight," Jack said. Dean nodded and moved around to the other side of Billy, setting his hands over the boy's arms just below the elbows.

Jack looked up at him. "I can't get in there to clean this out," he warned the other man. "I'm gonna pull out what I can see, flush it out with the saline as much as I can and then pour the alcohol over it."

Dean nodded again, knowing what to expect. Once the wounds were cleaner, they'd at least be able to stitch what could be stitched and bind up the rest. In the kit there were several tubs of the thick, honey-based healing paste Oliver had made up from the order's books. That would probably help the most, he thought, tightening his hold as Jack bent over Billy and began to pull the shreds of fabric out.

* * *

_**Tawas Camp, Lake Tawas, Michigan**_

The wide room was warm and well-lit, the daylight fluorescents giving an even light across the examination table and work benches. Bernice frowned as she looked at the form on her clipboard.

"Sorry, Connie, when did you say was the last time you had your menses?"

"It was the last week of October," Connie said, sitting on the edge of the table comfortably. "Finished on the 29th. I remember because I was supposed to be training that night, and that's always such a pain if it's still going, but it wasn't."

Bernice nodded, making a note. "And your sexual encounters were …?"

The nurse looked up at the silence that followed the question, seeing the young woman's neck and face had turned crimson. "It's alright, dear, these are confidential files."

"It's not that," Connie said quietly. "I don't know what happened the next week, Bernice. I –"

"Why don't you tell me the dates and we'll go from there?"

"Um, yeah, well the first was the night of the 29th, then the 30th, 31st, uh … 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th."

Bernice noted the dates, her face expressionless. "Who was your partner?"

"Does that matter?" Connie hedged. "I mean – what's it got to do with anything?"

"Well, dear, in nine months you're going to be a mother and you'll need help – we're trying to organise a system of support –"

Connie shook her head. "Look, they were all different guys, all those dates."

"Oh," Bernice said, looking down at the form again.

"That's not – I'm not usually like that," the young woman told her defensively. "I – that week? I just couldn't – it was like – there was just no way …" Her shoulders slumped as she gave up trying to explain.

Bernie looked at her. "Don't feel badly about this, Connie. A lot of women have come in with the same problem. We'll run the blood tests when the baby comes and sort out some kind of assistance then?"

"Yeah, thanks," she said, looking away. "Are we done?"

"Yes, you can get dressed. We'll need to see you in two weeks, for the first sonogram."

"What's that for?" Her brows arched up.

"Firstly, to get a more accurate estimate of your due date, check on the baby's growth, make sure there are no problems for that stage – just routine, really," Bernice said, omitting the main worry both Meredyth and Bob had expressed.

"Can you tell the sex then?"

"No, we won't see that until you're further along."

"Oh, that's a shame," Connie said, sliding off the edge of the table and looking around for her clothes.

* * *

Bernice sighed as she closed the door behind Connie and walked through the examination room to the surgeries and offices behind it.

Meredyth looked up as she came in, brows rising at the expression on the nurse's face.

"You look disenchanted."

"I realise that I grew up in a different era to the girls of the last twenty years, but I've never seen anything like this," Bernice said, putting the clipboard down on the desk.

"It's not them, Bernice," Bob said with rueful smile. "I saw a dozen young men over at Lake West at the end of October who were worried they were turning into sex addicts."

Meredyth glanced at him. "The rest weren't?"

"Well, I didn't talk to them, but I'd guess that they thought they'd hit Paradise," Bob acknowledged wryly.

Meredyth nodded. "I talked to Jerome, the man from the library in Lebanon. He said that the effect of this … goddess … or whatever it is, is very strong. I'm not sure how much to buy into his story, but he said that she must have passed close to us that week, exacerbating the effect." She looked down at her desk. "How many have we've seen now?"

"Connie's part of the last batch," Bernice said, picking up the clipboard and flicking through the forms. "We've got another thirty to see tomorrow, and that will be all of them, at least here. Jo sent a message up from Lake West, they've tested all the women there as well."

"And the totals?"

"It's a hundred percent success rate, Meredyth," Bernice told her. "Seventeen hundred and forty-five here, twelve hundred and eighty-six in Lake West."

"Kim says the same about Kansas," Bob added.

"What are we going to do with them?"

"How many do we have in training now?" Meredyth asked.

"Just over a hundred and eighty-five here," the nurse said dryly. "But they won't be nearly ready by the time they're needed."

"No, and we need somewhere for those who are going to have problems," Bob said tiredly.

"Renee said Liev and Ryan are coming back here as soon as the roads clear. They'll get started on modifying some of our existing buildings so that we can set up wards," Bernice told him. "I already told them we needed aircraft hangers!"

* * *

_**East Keep, Lebanon, Kansas**_

Alex walked through the tunnel, feeling the cold sinking into her even through four layers of clothing, socks and thick boots. The new people brought in by Rufus and Maurice had settled into the eastern tower, and she'd been delighted to find several experienced spinners and weavers with them, setting them to work to teach anyone else who was interested. Fabric – clothing – was going to be an issue of massive proportions when the population doubled – or tripled – over the next year.

The all-too familiar pang of grief came with the thought and she pushed it aside automatically, narrowing her attention to what she had to discuss with Aileen and Murray about supplies, storage and getting more people out to the farms in the spring.

Behind the surface thoughts, the feeling persisted. She'd made her decision six months ago, knowing what the situation was, knowing that it would probably never change. Doubting him now, doubting what they had, wasn't helpful. The feelings had risen over the last month gradually, and she wasn't sure where they'd come from, or why. She didn't think anything had changed. They were both busy, so much so that the tiredness that was sucking the energy from her more and more each day, it seemed, could only be an accumulation of too many late nights and early mornings. The sudden spurts of emotion, grief or anger or a wordless, formless longing for she didn't even know what, were inexplicable but so powerful sometimes that she'd ended up spending more and more time in the apartment, unable to eat or do anything other than curl up in the bed and let it out in the dark.

The couple of inches of fresh powder squeaked under her boot soles as she came out into the southern bailey and walked faster toward the steps of the tower. It was barely nine, and she could already feel the sapping lassitude coming over her. She needed to get the decisions squared away before the ability to think clearly disappeared altogether.

The huge hall was empty when she pushed the door open and stomped her feet to loosen and shed the packed snow from her boots. She hurried through the arch to the long corridor, wondering where everyone was, slowing as she rounded the corner and saw a long line of people in front of her.

"What's going on?" she asked the woman at the back of the line.

"Tests," the woman said shortly. "Been with a man once in the last six months, but we all have to have them apparently."

Alex nodded and walked down the corridor toward the keep's offices. She almost ran into Merrin as the older woman stepped out of a doorway.

"There you are," Merrin said, brows drawing together as she looked at Alex's face. "I need to talk to you."

Alex looked down at her watch. "About what? I need to see Aileen about –"

"That'll wait for a few minutes, dear, Aileen's seeing Kim right now anyway," the nurse told her and steered her into the room, ignoring the muttered protest from those waiting in the line and closing the door behind her.

"You look like hell, Alex," Merrin said bluntly as Alex turned around. "What's going on?"

Alex shrugged, shaking her head. "Just busy, same as usual."

"You look –" she cut herself off abruptly, gesturing to the padded table to one side of the room. "You haven't been tested, so we'll do that first."

"What?"

Merrin looked at her, one brow cocked. "Every woman in good health and child-bearing age, Alex – you were in the meeting."

"But –" she said, waving a hand vaguely. "No uterus, Merrin. I really don't think it applies."

The nurse gave her a sharp look. "Humour me."

Alex thought about arguing and decided it was too much effort. "Fine."

"Are you eating?"

She looked at the older woman and shrugged. "I haven't been all that hungry lately. Just tired."

"You don't look like you're getting enough sleep."

Alex snorted. "I had fifteen hours yesterday."

"Are you worried about something?"

She hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. "No, nothing in particular."

Merrin frowned at the hesitation but let it go. "Blood, urine, and I want to Kim to examine you."

"Is this really necessary?" Alex asked, looking at her watch again.

Catching the movement from the corner of her eye, the nurse smiled blandly at her. "Yes, it is. You can get undressed in here," she said, handing her a thin cotton gown. "It won't take long."

Looking at the gown, Alex sighed inwardly and began to undress.

* * *

_**Church Vaults, Vatican City, Rome**_

They moved in silence through the tunnels and down the stairs, every sense acutely attuned to the slightest noise, the slightest difference in their surroundings. Twice, Peter froze as he heard something moving through the catacombs ahead of them, moving on only when he sure that whatever it was had gone. The vermithrax – the Thracian worm – was a creature that was similar to a basilisk, with the ability to petrify the cells of its victim with the sight of it, direct or reflected. They were snake-like, with thick, rough scales over the sides and belly and a standing crest of feathers from the back of the skull to the tip of the tail, growing to more than thirty metres and living for hundreds of years. There hadn't been a reported sighting of one for a thousand years and most of the lore claimed they'd been exterminated from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea since the taking of Troy, but plainly the lore was wrong.

In the last junction before they crossed from the catacombs to the older ossuary that lay beneath, the young serpent took them by surprise.

Elena was looking behind her, checking to see that Francois had come through the tunnel, when she heard the metallic brush of the scales over the stone floor. She dove to the side, landing on her shoulder and lifting the small mirror in her hand, angling it to show her the uneven ground behind her. The mirror was purely to see the movement, not the creature.

"No!" Marc's roar filled the junction and she swung the mirror, catching a glimpse of him, machete drawn and swinging blindly as he strode forward with his eyes tightly shut.

"Left!" Peter yelled, his back to the man and monster, the mirror in his hand angled to the floor to avoid seeing the whole creature.

Elena closed her eyes and rolled over, ears straining to pinpoint location by the sounds, aware that between the hissing of the vermithrax, the harsh breathing of Marc and the others, she could barely hear the sounds well enough to get a fix on where everyone was.

"Elena, three o'clock!" Francois screamed at her, panic is his voice. She swung around and reversed the mirror, pointing it where she hoped the juvenile might be, opening her eyes a slit and looking at the floor as the monster solidified in front of her.

More than one, she thought frantically, hearing the rasp of scales over the rock. She dropped and rolled to the wall, swinging the mirror in a wide, low arc, seeing another sinuous body moving up on her flank.

Behind her there was a thud and a sound like a steam pressure pipe being relieved, and she rolled forward, eyes slitted and gaze locked to the ground as her ears gave her the locations of two of the juveniles, her sword in her hand as she stepped forward, sensing more than hearing the lunge of the nearer and turning fast, the singing of the metal through the air stopped suddenly as it bit into and through the thick neck. She swung around and lifted the point, feeling it bite into something less than two feet from her and she thrust the mirror out, dragging her sword free as the monster petrified into solidity at the sight of its own reflection.

Another thump from the other side of the junction and she edged along the wall cautiously, moving the mirror so that she could see the rough rock floor to either side of her. She saw four bodies … two of them rigid statues, two lying lifeless and headless.

"Peter?"

"Can you hear the others?"

"No," he said shortly. "Francois?"

"I can't hear anything," the French hunter said from the other side of the junction. "Marc?"

There was a deeply indrawn breath from the centre of the room. "No, there were four, I think. They're dead."

"Isabeau?" Elena called.

"Elena," Marc said, his voice raw suddenly as he crossed the junction to her. "She – the serpent surprised her."

She knew what he meant, but she couldn't seem to relate that to the young woman she'd known from a baby, had trained and protected.

"What?"

"Come on," Peter said harshly. "We may mourn when we are out of here."

"No."

She felt a hand close around her arm, Marc's strength pulling her to her feet, pushing her in front of him. She threw out a hand and felt the wall beside her, letting her hand trail along it as she stumbled forward, her mind filled with memories that she couldn't push away. _Jean_. The man's face appeared in her mind's eye and she stopped, head dropping. Marc's arm slid around her shoulders and pushed her forward.

* * *

The tunnel that led down was much smaller than the ones they'd come through, the steps almost bowl-shaped by the passage of feet. She could smell dampness rising through the cold air and she dragged in a deep breath, locking away thought and feeling to focus on what they were here to do.

The flickering torch light led them to the lowest vaults and she noted the long, narrow boat tied to the side of the rocky ledge that divided the tombs from the canal.

"Through here," Peter said abruptly, leading them away from the canal and boat, through a narrow passage and into a much larger cavern, its walls lined with open tombs, bones gleaming in the torchlight in those carved holes. In the centre of the space, shelving and cabinets and tables stood, coated in grime and dust, their contents wrapped tightly in plastic.

"Francois, you and I will remain here, to get the loads ready and protect them," Peter said. "Elena, you and Marc take the first boatload out to the Tiber. Marc, you'll find more of these small craft near the canal entrance, bring another back while Elena takes the texts down to Luc."

"Without backup?" Marc frowned at him.

"We don't have much time," Peter snapped. "We need to take as many of these as we can. Francois will go with you and bring back a third boat while you go down river."

Elena straightened up, clearing her throat. "It is correct, Marc. This is why we are here."

She picked up an armload of the wrapped manuscripts nearest to her and carried them back through the passage to the boat. Marc looked after her for a moment then turned to grab a load and follow her. Peter nodded to Francois and went to the shelves.

* * *

_**US 270 E, Oklahoma**_

The landscape was eerie, shades of white and grey and pale purples, covering everything that might've provided relief, the thick, leafless woods to one side of the road, thinner saplings on the other. The squeak and crunch of the snow packing under their snowshoes and the persistent hiss of the ends of the travois were the only sounds Dean could hear in the flat, still country. Nightfall was another hour away, but he was already looking for someplace they could dig into and defend when darkness settled around them.

"You see them?" Rufus asked quietly, walking beside him.

He shook his head. "No, but I think there're more now than there were an hour ago."

The older hunter nodded, his rifle held tucked under his arm, the pack weighing heavily over his shoulders.

"We're still about twenty miles from McAlester."

Dean snorted softly. "Think there'll be anything left in any of the little towns around here?"

"Basements, maybe," Rufus shrugged. "It's not just the wildlife we got to worry about, Billy won't last long if he gets too cold and Nate and me, not in our prime anymore either."

Dean slid a sideways look at him. "You finally admitting to getting old, Rufus? Now?"

He saw the flash of the hunter's teeth in the gloomy light. "Might be."

"We'll have to stop before dusk," Dean said, chewing the corner of his lip as he thought through the best possible defences they could give themselves if they were still in the more-or-less open ground. "We'll ring the camp in fires, two watching, two off."

"Plenty of wood."

"Yeah."

* * *

The night didn't fall discernibly, but imperceptibly, moment by moment it got harder to see, to make out the road, the trees that sometimes crowded close, sometimes drew back.

Dean looked at the small rise in the midst of the narrow band of saplings. It was the best there was here.

"There," he called out softly, catching the sense of movement in his peripheral again.

Rufus nodded and he and Nate lifted the end of the travois, helping Jack to carry it up the slope and into the shelter of the saplings. None of the men needed to be told what to do, moving together through the trees to get wood enough for several fires that would last through the increasingly bitter night.

Dean stood next to Billy's litter, watching the timber line, the long, black barrel of the automatic rifle he held following his gaze as he scanned the perimeter. They'd brought what they could carry with them. Humping forty-pound packs on snowshoes was not a fun way to spend the day. But they had ammo, food, the small tent, rated for arctic conditions. They could manage, if the goddamned wolves that had been tracking them most of the afternoon could be dissuaded from believing that they were good to eat and easy prey.

He saw the shadow emerge from the trees, low to the ground, twenty yards behind Nate and the rifle was against his shoulder in the single, fluid movement of the trigger squeeze. The crack was loud in the gathering dusk and the wolf dropped to the snow unmoving as the men looked behind them and started to move faster with their loads.

A long howl rose and was answered by a dozen others, the song degenerating into a rabble of growls and yelps from every point of the compass. Dean swung around, his flashlight held against the barrel, looking for the tell-tale reflectivity in the darkness, firing at the eyes he saw. Two more fell, the others withdrawing and scattering.

"How many d'you think?" Rufus asked Nate as they dropped the last load of wood beside the fires.

"Grey wolves usually don't have big packs," Nate said, crouching by the central fire. "Family groups, between maybe four and twelve, the adult pair and their offspring." He gestured to the darkness surrounding them. "You heard them, more than one leader, maybe two-three packs joined together, the strongest male leading them all?"

"There has to be plenty of food around here," Dean said, looking past the flames into night. "Why gang up just for us?"

"I don't know," Nate said, shrugging one shoulder. "But we're going to have a hard time keeping them off if they're not afraid."

Rufus glanced at Dean. "Show 'em what the guns do?"

Dean nodded slowly. "Yeah, we've got at least ten more miles to the base, going straight across country. That'll be either a dark-to-dark or another camp, and either way we don't need company." He turned to look at Jack. "How's Billy?"

The ex-paramedic glanced over his shoulder, one side of his face brightly lit by the fire, the other in partial shadow. "He's running a fever, I was hoping the alcohol and the antibiotics would take care of it, but I'm not sure he's responding to them."

"We've been dragging him for two days," Nate said, looking at Jack. "He might stabilise once we've stopped moving."

"He might," Jack agreed reluctantly.

"We can't just sit here and use up everything we've got," Dean decided. "We'll push for McAlester tomorrow, as hard as we can."

"They'll chase us if they think we're running," Nate said to no one in particular, staring at the fire.

"Then tonight we make sure that they know we're not running," Dean answered him coldly. "Get Billy into the tent. Rufus, you and Jack take first watches. Nate and me'll take graveyard."

Rufus nodded, getting up to help Jack get the boy into the relative warmth of the small tent. It was going to be a long night, he could already feel it.

* * *

Dean shifted his position on the ground, feeling something digging into his ribs. There'd been a couple of shots, after he and Nate had moved into the tent.

"Testing us," Nate had said, his voice drowsy. "They'll save the big attack for later – that'll be you and me."

He'd nodded and heard Nate's bandsaw snore start up a few minutes later.

Tigers. Wolves. Monsters. Demons. Fallen angels. A bitch of a bitter winter. _What else_, he thought dourly, _what else you gonna throw at us?_ The thing sticking into him shifted its position and he rolled onto his side away from it, relaxing fractionally as he realised that it was moderately comfortable.

A population increase. Of everything, apparently. But it was the human increase he was worried about. They could spread out, of course, nothing to stop them but labour and materials. He thought of Chuck's vision and felt an icy finger slide down his spine. A demon army, the prophet had seen. Marching on Lebanon in the spring. Where was he gonna get the time to build more accommodation – solid, fortified and defended accommodation – with that coming down on them? How was he was supposed to protect a population that big?

_Spread it around, Dean._ Her voice, soft and low in his head. She was right. And Boze was doing a good job with Michigan, no problems there. Who else? Bobby and Ellen? Nate was experienced. And Elias.

_It never should have just been on you to start with_, she whispered to him.

Maybe not, but it had and he'd learned a long time ago to live with what he was given, to pick it up and carry it.

_You deserve more_.

Did he? He didn't know that. He didn't even know if she did … still. Since he'd returned from Jordan, she'd been increasingly tired and withdrawn, and he didn't know why. Just knew it was leaving a small ache, where he couldn't reach, that he couldn't ignore.

The thin synthetic material of the tent let the light of the multiple fires through easily and he found himself staring at the flickering shapes on the wall closest to him. He didn't know how to unpick the habits of a lifetime. It'd always been his brother, the one he put everything else aside for. One job. One duty that had priority over everything else. He'd turned it away from that and the devil had found Sam and brought down the world. That'd been on him, cutting Sam loose, leaving him to deal with what he'd done, on his own.

He wouldn't do it again, but when was it his turn, he wondered irritably? When did he get to have what he wanted? He stared at the outlines of the flames on the other side of the thin fabric. Did he even know what he wanted?

_I do, you know_.

Lisa had told him that she loved him. The words had passed over him without impact, without stirring any feeling in him at all. She'd said it without knowing him, without knowing anything about him, really. And she'd told him she hadn't wanted to know.

_That's not love_. He rolled his eyes. What the fuck did he know about it? He'd never let anyone in, not even Cassie when he'd thought he couldn't live without her and had told her the truth. No one. He'd loved his family with everything that was in him and had lost them. Given up on his brother when Sam had needed him the most. _You're afraid_. The thought slipped insidiously past his guard. His eyes screwed shut. He was. Afraid of the way it'd felt to lose what he'd wanted – had loved - most. Afraid to take the risk of that happening again.

_I do, you know_. Did she? Still? He hadn't doubted it before. Why now? What'd had changed?

He rolled onto his back, rubbing a hand tiredly over his face. He didn't know.

* * *

They came an hour before dawn, eyes reflecting in the firelight and flashlight beams, silent over the snow. Dean switched from semi to auto, and sprayed the shallow slope as the wolves accelerated up it, the cannonade of gunfire filling the night, the flash from the muzzle strobing his face as he turned through ninety degrees, holding the rifle steady and watching the animals drop. Nothing supernatural about them, he thought regretfully, the big calibre bullets punching in and through and killing them instantly, the over-penetration at the close range taking out the ones behind as well.

The pack lost more than half before they stopped coming and the last remnants of the night were filled with howls, receding into the forest, but answered by others more distant.

Nate reloaded, crouched beside the central fire. "Think they'll give us a wide berth now."

Dean looked down the slope. Little more than shadowed humps against the lighter snow, he counted ten on his side. "Makes you wonder how that would've gone down if we didn't have the guns."

Nate stood, walking to stand beside him. "We wouldn't be alive," he said quietly. "I spent a bit of time up north. Ran into a guy working up there, some college guy, doing research on wolves." He looked down at the bodies. "Told me a few things about wolves, grey wolf, like these. Type-species, he called them. All the others came from them. Dogs too. He was looking at pack behaviour. Said that wolves co-operate when there's a lot of food around."

"Like these? Why would they need a big pack when everything's growing out of control?"

"I don't know," Nate said, drawing in a deep breath. "He just said that they were about as successful as humans in terms of apex predators."

"That's – not reassuring."

"No."

Dean turned back to the fire, freeing his clip and pushing a new one in, tucking the warm, nearly empty magazine into his jacket pocket. "We'll go as soon as it's light."

* * *

_**East Keep, Lebanon, Kansas**_

"Well, you're pregnant," Merrin said without preamble as she came back into the room. "Kim wants to see you straight away."

Alex looked up at her, mouth open. "Don't you need to do another test? Sometimes you get false positives?"

"Not this one." Merrin shook her head. "Come on."

Alex stood up and looked around the room. "But –"

"No buts, Alex, Kim's waiting for you."

She followed the nurse out of the room, through the connecting doorways that led to the doctor's small office. Kim looked up from the file on her desk as they entered.

"Sit down, Alex, I realise it's a shock," the small-framed doctor said gently.

Merrin turned and left and Alex sat on the edge of the examination table.

"How?"

Kim stood up and walked to her. "You said that Death removed all the wounds, when he brought you back?"

"Yes, but –"

"It's seems likely that he repaired the internal damage as well?"

"That wasn't 'damage', Kim," Alex said sharply. "It was gone."

"And you haven't had a period since May?"

"No!" Alex looked down at her fingers, curled up in fists in her lap. "Don't you think I'd have said something about that!?"

"Well, let's take a look and see what we can see, shall we?" Kim said soothingly. "Lie down, I'd usually wait another couple of weeks for the normal sonogram, but we'll do a transvaginal and I should be able to see the organs clearly."

Alex lay down on the table, her heart thumping against her ribs, her thoughts spinning chaotically.

"This will feel a little cold," Kim said quietly, inserting the gel-covered probe carefully. "Can you see the monitor?"

Alex turned her head. On a bracket on the wall next to the table, a small monitor showed a shifting and grainy black and white image. Kim watched it intently, as she slid the probe a little deeper.

"There," she said, holding still. "You can't see the foetus yet, it's too small, but that's the uterine wall." She turned to look at Alex. "Everything's fine, just where I'd expect to be."

Alex stared at the flickering picture, blinking as Kim removed the probe and the monitor became blank.

Everything she'd spent the past six years telling herself, trying to accept, trying to find a way through and past was now non-applicable, she thought. And she had no idea of what to think now.

"Are you alright?" Kim watched her sit up slowly.

She looked at the doctor and nodded. "Yes, I'm fine."

"Merrin said you were having difficulties with eating? Were you feeling nauseous?"

"In the evenings," Alex confirmed. That explained that, didn't it, she thought. "And I was just too tired to worry about it most of the time, when I'm there on my own."

_On my own_, she thought, the words taking on an ominous tone suddenly. She didn't know what he would say, how he would feel.

"The first few weeks has that effect on a lot of women," Kim said reassuringly. "Your body is going through some monumental changes, getting itself ready, growing a new person – it all comes out of the mother. You need to eat, Alex, and you need to eat well. I can give you some supplements –"

"No, that's –" she hesitated, shaking her head slightly. "I'll cook properly now."

"How are you sleeping?"

Alex's mouth lifting in a twisting smile. "Like the dead. Usually ten to twelve hours."

"That's alright," Kim nodded, making a note on the file. "That's needed. What about your emotions? Mood swings?"

She hesitated. "Some."

"It's normal," Kim said quickly, seeing the reticence in her face. "A woman's body releases a lot of hormones at this time, to facilitate the changes that are needed and the growth of the baby – those hormones will exacerbate anything you're worried about, sometimes out of sight, you might feel weepy for no reason, angry, upset – all of it is quite normal and nothing to worry about."

Alex looked at the door. Was that all it was? Had the hormones been driving her doubts? How could she tell what was real and what was her body just doing its job?

"Kim, if I've been – whole – all this time, why haven't I gotten pregnant before this? We haven't used any – I mean, it just seemed redundant, so –" she said, her brow furrowed as she pushed the problem of her feelings aside.

"I don't know," Kim said bluntly. "If you weren't cycling before, perhaps Death restored it all but it needed something else to get it working? The goddess walking through here, jump-starting everything might've done that?"

Yeah, Alex thought, remembering Jerome's description of what they would have to expect. That might've done it.

"I want you back in three weeks," Kim said, looking at the calendar on her desk. "First week of January. We'll do the ultrasound and we should be able to narrow down the due date." She turned back to her. "And in the meantime, you start taking care of yourself properly, okay?"

Alex nodded.

"See Merrin for the supplements – there are some things that help that are hard to get in winter, and in our situation, she'll give you what's needed."

* * *

Sitting at the table in the apartment, Alex stared absently at the small bottles in front of her. She'd lit the fire, cleaned the entire place, chopped the ingredients for a casserole and it was in the oven, cooking slowly and gradually filling the small place with rich and tantalising aromas. When she'd run out of things to do, she'd sat down, looking at the pills that were supposed to supplement her diet. Folic acid. Magnesium. Iodine. Essentials, Merrin had said.

She had a vivid memory of Dean's face, two years ago when Liev had shown them around the half-finished buildings of Tawas. The stocky builder had congratulated him on the news of his impending fatherhood. And she'd seen, under his surprise, a flicker of discomfort in his expression. She'd never asked him about it. Had never asked him about his relationship with Lisa for that matter. She thought it would be too hard on him.

She didn't want this to be a trap, didn't want him to feel that he had to stay if he didn't want to. And how much more of one would it seem to him since she was supposed to be a hundred percent safe, she wondered bitterly? She knew him intimately, knew his scars and fears and his doubts about himself, but she didn't know how he felt about her, about them. He didn't say anything, and she couldn't ask and everything else, everything that he did, the way he looked at her, the way he was when it was just them and nothing and no one else … she didn't know if that was real or not.

_It's real, you know that_, a small voice said in her mind. She shook her head. She wanted it to be, but that was part of the problem, wasn't it? Wanting something so much, it was easy to kid yourself that something was there when maybe it wasn't.

_He wants to be here_, the voice told her and she knew that was true. She didn't doubt that. But … did he want to be here when it wasn't just the present, in the moment, did he want to be here when it was the future, did he want that future?

The voice was silent. She didn't know.

* * *

_**Port-Au-Nouvelle, France**_

The sea glittered as the sunlight speared from the wave-tops, the deep chug of the engines a lazy counterpoint to the boat's gentle rolling from side-to-side as they approached the coast.

"The Qaddiysh, they 'ave gone to find this box?" Elena leaned on the rail, staring over the water to the indistinct smudge of land.

Peter nodded. "They will come to Lourdes if they find it."

"An' you will take them to America?"

"Yes." _And hope we are in time_, he thought bleakly.

"But these tablets – prophet stones – or whatever you are calling them … they give the details on destroying the demons? The creatures we 'unt?" Elena asked carefully.

"I don't know, _chère_," he said, turning his head to look down at her. "It seems that they were written down for that purpose, but no one in the last two thousand years has seen one, and only a prophet can read them."

She hadn't mentioned Isabeau. He wondered what she was thinking. She had seemed strong and sensible when he'd met her in Venice five years ago. A hard, angular woman with short, dark-brown hair and silver-blue eyes, she'd seemed formidable. Francois had given him a little more information. It worried him now.

"I would like to come with you," she said, straightening up and looking at him.

"You are needed here."

She shook her head. "No, I'm not." Gesturing toward the pilot house, she added. "We are so few that we are better placed to research and defend the chapter, than actually look for survivors as the Americans have done. That does not require my presence."

"You are their leader, Elena," Peter said cautiously. "How will it be with them if you leave?"

"Luc is stronger," she said, turning away with a one-shouldered shrug. "And they will understand, I think."

"Isabeau was taken by surprise –"

"She was under my care, Peter," Elena cut him off. "An' Jean will not be able to forgive me for not bringing her back."

"There was nothing you could've done," he persisted, his hand closing around her arm, bringing her attention back to him. "I don't need a reckless hunter looking for death when I take the Watchers to the US."

She pulled her arm free. "I am not that, Peter."

"Then why?"

"You said it yourself, you need all the experienced hunters you can find –"

"We have enough," he said, shaking his head.

"You don't," she said bluntly. "You – and the Americans – are hunting too many trails."

He couldn't argue that point. He thought of the hunters in Kansas and Michigan. They had a population to protect and there was no way that Winchester would leave that population unguarded, not even to find the tablets, to find the goddesses and lock them back under mountain. He sighed, closing his eyes.

"We will discuss it when the Qaddiysh come."

"That is satisfactory."

* * *

Luc manoeuvred the boat alongside the long concrete wharf carefully and the hunters leapt ashore to secure the ship to the pilings. The trucks were where they left them, parked close to the concrete freight buildings, and Marc and Francois walked to get them, reversing them up the wharf to the gangplank.

Luc came down the narrow companionway stairs from the wheelhouse, glancing at Peter.

"She asked you, _oui_?"

Peter nodded. "Will they let her?" He glanced out through the portholes to the dock.

Luc nodded. "I think so."

He looked at the crates that were stacked from side to side of the cabin, held back to the hull with nets. "Do you think it was worth it?"

The hunter exhaled. "I no longer make such valuations, Luc," he said tiredly. "We had a job. We did it. That is as far as my responsibility extends."

"Probably a better way to look at this," the blond hunter agreed. "The weather is coming down; we need to get out of here before the passes are blocked again."

* * *

_**McAlester, Oklahoma**_

Rufus adjusted the focus on the binoculars he stared through. "Base looks intact."

"How much open ground to the nearest building?" Dean rolled onto his back and looked back down the shallow incline at the others. Jack and Nate stood to either side of the travois, rifles raised. The pack had not attacked again through the long, gruelling trek across the thick snow, but they'd followed, flitting like shadows along the edges of the forest and their howls sounding through the day, sometimes behind them, sometimes ahead.

"Five hundred yards," Rufus said. "Most of the fence is down."

"Think they'll let us across without attacking again?"

The older hunter turned onto his shoulder, the glasses scanning the base of the forest to their right. They were still there, in the gloom under the bare canopies.

"Probably not."

Dean nodded, his lips thinning at the thought of the next bit. "You and Jack take Billy," he said. "We'll cover."

Rufus thought of the numbers and wondered how many had joined the remnants of the pack they'd decimated in the night.

"Let's do it."

They slid down the hill, binoculars returned to the packs at the bottom. Nate looked at Dean. "They're going to try and cut us off from the building."

"How many clips have you got?"

"Twenty in the pack, five in my jacket," Nate said. "That's all that'll fit."

Dean nodded, transferring his full magazines from the pack to his jacket pockets. He glanced toward the base. "You take point, cut them down and keep the way clear."

Rufus turned his head to look at the younger man. "Don't fall behind."

Dean gave him a crooked smile. "I won't."

They shouldered the packs again. The weight would slow them down but leaving anything behind that they couldn't make themselves had rapidly become a less viable option. Nate moved out ahead, choosing a line where the downed fence wouldn't hang up the travois and walking fast. Behind him, Rufus and Jack had the long sapling ends, Billy lying on the stretched out sleeping bags between them, his face white and bloodless, his eyes closed as the ends left furrows in the snow and bounced over the hummocks.

Dean followed them, scanning behind and to both sides continuously. The flat grey light from the low cloud cover had made the day seem endless, but he realised they were going to lose even that advantage soon, the air thickening incrementally as the sun fell behind the low hills to the west.

They crossed the twisted and mostly buried chainlink and razor-wire fence line and the last of the light faded into the shadowless murk, dimming moment by moment. Behind him, Dean heard the single shots of Nate's gun, and he swung around, seeing the first of the distant wolves, their outlines blurring into the featureless grey snow-covered field, only their movement letting him pick them out. Sixty yards and too spread out, he thought.

"Go, go!" he yelled over his shoulder to Rufus and Jack, swinging from side to side as he followed them, not even trying to fire at the half-stumbling run, keeping close to the travois and waiting for the animals to get closer and close up together.

His eyes widened slightly as he saw them converging, a lot more than they'd seen through the day, the sinuous shapes, darker and lighter, racing toward them. Throwing a look behind him, he could see that they had another hundred yards to go, at least. The high concrete wall had a single small door set in the side, and it would almost certainly be locked. He stopped and picked off the two closest, turning and running after the men again.

Nate had stopped as well, as Rufus and Jack barrelled past him, the travois jumping and bouncing after them. The machine gun stuttered and a dozen wolves fell at a distance of twenty yards from him. He saw more coming from the eastern side of the base and followed the travois, stopping again a little short of fifty yards from the building.

Dean flipped the gun to automatic and sprayed the rounds of the clip into the oncoming animals as they closed with him, watching them fall, spinning and racing for the building when the clip was empty, his thumb ejecting it and letting it fall as he slammed the fresh one in and stopped again, turning and sweeping the barrel across the line of wolves that was much closer now. It was the most bizarre chase of his life, he thought distantly, the wolves moving much faster than he could over the deep snow, gaining on him with every stop, and more coming, almost invisible now in the near-darkness, his ears straining to hear the rushing sounds of their paws on the iced-over snow. He ejected the next clip as it emptied, thrusting the new one in and grabbing his flashlight from his pocket as he pounded toward the building. A bullet whistled past him and he felt a bump from behind as the wolf Nate had taken down slid into his heels.

"Now!" he panted.

Rufus lit the handful of flares and threw them in a broad sweep, lighting up the snow with a violently pink glare as Nate began to shoot steadily. Dean was ten yards from them when the animal hit him in the back and he was thrown forward and down, skidding over the snow, feeling jaws closing around the back of his thigh. He rolled and swore, swinging the barrel hard and feeling the metal stock connect with bone, the wolf yelping in surprise. Pushing hard with his heels, Dean slid closer to the building, dropping the barrel, his finger tightening on the trigger and the gun chattering in his hands as he swept it across the wolf that had brought him down and those to either side.

He heard the crunch of snow behind him and rolled fast to his knees, his heart hammering furiously until he saw Nate striding toward him, the flashes continuous as the older man jerked his head back to the others.

Staggering to his feet, he backed toward the others, Nate moving with him, the two rifles taking in a hundred-and-eighty degrees between them. There was a single gunshot from the door and Rufus yelled out that they were in. Turning together, Dean and Nate ran for the door, slamming it shut, Dean throwing his weight against it as Nate shot the flat bolts through the locks.

It was pitch-black inside and Dean shook his flashlight, the beam recovering and lighting up one wall. Nate dropped his pack, pulling his flashlight out and packing another five mags into his jacket.

"Any other entrances?" Nate asked, refastening the pack and getting to his feet.

"No idea," Dean said shortly. He looked at Rufus and Jack. "You two stay here. We'll do a recce."

Rufus nodded and helped Jack get the travois raised a little.

Walking down the length of the building, Dean wondered if they'd be left alone long enough to find the damned susvees and everything else they'd come here for.

"How many were there?"

Nate shook his head. "I don't know. A lot."

"But they don't do this, usually?"

"Not that I've ever seen or heard of."

"What makes us so lucky?" Dean asked irritably.

Nate scratched his head, his flashlight beam jumping around. "Must be your good looks, I never have this kind of luck on my own."

Dean looked at him sourly. "You're hilarious."

They turned as they reached the end. Most of the floor was empty, battered shelving lining the walls holding nothing but a few shreds of plastic.

"No debris in here," Nate commented as they came to the corner and turned down.

"Good." It meant there was a good chance that whatever other doors there were in the building were closed.

The edge of the light gleamed on shiny paint and Dean swung it to his left, showing the interior. He grinned as he saw the boxy shape in the beam, bright red and looking more like a kid's blocky toy than anything else.

"I believe the word you're looking for is 'bingo'," Nate said dryly, his flashlight showing the wide grin.

"Are the others here?"

They moved the beams across the interior. Another boxy shape loomed out of the dimness behind the first.

"Two's a good start." Nate flicked the light back to the wall. "We got another floor here."

"We'll check it tomorrow," Dean decided, feeling the tension easing out of his shoulders and neck as they saw the last wall ahead, three monstrous roller doors locked tight down to the ground taking up most of it. They checked each of them, ensuring that the chains that rolled them were firmly fastened and bolting the small postern door on that side at the same time.

"Dean," Nate stopped by the corner, his flashlight shining on a tall white cupboard near the kitchen area. On the door, a bold red cross had been painted.

Dean nodded and walked to it, pulling out the set of picks that lived permanently in his jacket pocket. He unlocked it and whistled softly, as Nate's light showed the thickly stocked shelves.

"Well, this'll help," he muttered, pulling out a couple of ampoules of broad-spectrum antibiotics, needles, syringes and a handful of sterilised dressings. "See if we can't do something with Billy's wounds now."

* * *

The susvee started reluctantly but ran perfectly once it had warmed up. The upstairs floor had been cleaned out as well, to Dean's annoyance. They'd have to do a tour of the place to find what they needed, but at least they'd be doing in style, he thought, watching the side-mirror as Nate ran the door up and he started to back out.

They'd looked around at first light. Forty wolves lay in an eighty yard radius around the postern door on the other side of the building, churned snow and multiple tracks making it hard to tell how many others had been with them. The tracks had stopped at the line of flares, the snow marked by their own bootprints but no pads beyond that. He wondered if the flares were a deterrent they should check into.

The vehicle rumbled out of the building and into the thin, wan sunshine and Dean stopped it as Nate ran for the other one, climbing in and starting it up. When he was out, they turned and headed for the furthest building, Rufus riding shotgun, Jack and Billy in the rear seat of the cab behind Dean. The antibiotics had helped, Jack said, but the wounds were still angry-looking and he was still running a fever.

* * *

_**US 24 W, Kansas**_

Dean watched the flakes flutter against the high, flat windshield, the wipers sweeping off periodically, the sky to the north iron-grey and louring. Behind him, Rufus drove the second susvee, Jack and Billy in his cab, and Nate was following along behind him, driving the third one. They'd left the fourth one in the first building, fully-loaded. He'd come back later and get it before spring.

The long tracks didn't care if they were running over snow-packed road, fields or frozen lakes, and they'd held firm even in the blizzard they'd gone through the previous evening, their wide base and low weight keeping them moving steadily in the howling crosswind. If the Grigori were holed up someplace in Colorado, he would be able to beat them there and, he hoped, circumvent whatever plan they had for getting to Kansas, long before they could move around freely.

They'd been gone for almost three weeks, with the digging out and the walking and fighting and then searching the buildings at the base one by one. But it wasn't far now, less than fifty miles and they'd be home.

Stretching a little, he watched the snow fall, lit by the headlights. He wanted a beer, and something not reconstituted to eat. A hot shower. About ten hours of uninterrupted sleep. And more than that, a lot more than that, he wanted to see Alex, walk through the door and see her look up, see her eyes warm and the smile he thought she reserved for him widen her mouth, and he wanted to breathe in her scent and feel her pressed against him and feel the weight of everything he carried slide off.

His foot pressed down a bit more firmly on the accelerator and the susvee lumbered ahead a little faster, the heater keeping the cab warm and snug.


	7. Chapter 7 Lies the Whispering Wind

**Chapter 7 Lies the Whispering Wind**

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon, Kansas**_

The guards on the keep wall gave a ragged cheer as the gleaming susvees pulled through the gates and Dean looked around in surprise as people came out of the buildings that lined the inner walls, watching as they drove down the length of the southern bailey toward Franklin's. Bad enough he was driving something that looked like a kid's toy, he thought uncomfortably, he didn't need a friggin' parade to go with it.

Swinging the vehicle's blunt nose around, he stopped it near the entrance and turned off the motor.

"Glad to see you made it," Franklin said, walking out and looking at the vehicle appraisingly. "Told you they'd be fine, didn't I?"

"Coming home was easy," Dean said, swinging down from the cab. "Getting there, not so much."

"Dean!"

He turned to see Bobby walking down beside the deep tracks the machines had left in the powder, Ellen on his heels.

"We think we've narrowed the location of the Grigori," Bobby wheezed as he reached him. "This side of the Rockies, in New Mexico."

"Somewhere around Santa Fe, maybe," Ellen added, reaching out to touch a bruise on the side of his face, her expression changing to a scowl. "What happened?"

He tipped his head away from her. "Just the usual."

"I've got a shed for these, Dean, down the way," Franklin interjected, pointing. "It's next to the arms store, so whatever you've got packed in the caboose can go straight in."

Dean glanced at him. "Keys are in it, knock yourself out," he said shortly, turning back to Bobby. "We can talk about the Grigori later, can't we?"

"Sure," Bobby said, looking surprised.

"Come on, Singer, let the man get some hot food and a cold beer," Ellen said. "We'll fill him on all the details later."

Dean looked around as Nate walked over. Rufus had taken his vehicle straight to the keep, to get Billy to Kim as fast as possible. He was starting to wish he'd had the kid with him.

"Adam, you're on duty, get Jules and Roger and get these machines into the shed and unpacked," Franklin barked out behind them. Dean turned to watch his half-brother scurry past. He hadn't spoken to him since Amarillo and he realised he shouldn't've let that slide as he watched the young man turn his face aside and head into the workshops without looking at him.

"Dean tell you about the wolves?" Nate asked Bobby, lifting his arms and stretching his back.

"No," Ellen said, looking at Dean. "What about the wolves?"

"Hot food and cold beer, remember?" he countered, walking past her and toward the keep. He couldn't have cared less about food or beer right now, he thought, hearing the squeak of their footsteps behind him on the dry powder. He lengthened his stride a little.

"And tigers," Nate said behind him and he rolled his eyes. Well, Nate could fill them in on all the details. The job was done.

He walked through the tunnel, hearing Ellen's voice but not the men's as they dropped further behind. The snow was still falling fitfully, flurries being pushed around by eddies of wind in between the high walls. He saw Rufus on the steps of the keep and sped up a little more.

"Billy with Kim?" he asked the hunter as he got close.

Rufus nodded. "She didn't give me a rating."

"Too early," he said, glancing down at the susvee. "Grab a trainee. Franklin's got a shed waiting."

"Dean!"

He turned around, recognising the voice, his stomach sinking a little. "Hey, Ben."

"I'm glad you're back, you made it just in time!" Ben said, his voice cracking and rising in his excitement, gesturing inside the keep. "Come and see what we've been doing!"

"Uh, maybe in a little while, kiddo," he said reluctantly. "I've got a few –"

He caught Rufus' quickly hidden grin from the corner of his eye as he watched Ben's face fall. "But you've been gone for weeks."

"Yeah, well …" he trailed off uncomfortably. "Uh, okay, sure, if you can make it quick." He gave in hopelessly, hearing Rufus chuckle behind him, and Ellen's voice gaining volume again as the three hunters approached the steps.

"And do you think he's gonna tell us anything about –?"

He hurried into the keep after Ben.

The hall, as huge as it was, was almost dwarfed by the twenty foot conifer that had been dragged in and set in a massive concrete tub between the two sets of stairs, dressed from top to bottom in lights and tinsel and glowing balls, the branches weighed down with candies and decorations.

He stared at it, wondering how on earth they gotten the damned thing in.

"It's awesome, isn't it?" Ben said, looking up at it with pride. "We made it – not the tree, duh, but all the decorations and the star and most of the balls are really hollow with candles or candies on the inside, Mrs Philps said they were like piñatas, you know where you can break the ball and the candies spill out, and the kids – I mean the little kids – will be able to do that Christmas morning –"

Dean looked down at him for a moment, then over his head to Rufus, the hunter's dark eyes crinkled up in amusement.

"– but that's not the cool thing, come on," Ben continued, blithely missing Dean's gusty exhale and Rufus' snort, as he turned to the right and walked fast toward the tall, arched doorway.

"Leave you to it," Rufus said cheerfully. Dean gave him a malevolent look and followed Ben through the doorway and into the series of interconnected living areas that Liev had designed to satisfy the needs of the different groups living in the keep. Ben slowed down, pointing out the decorations that wreathed each of the rooms, specifically those he liked the best or had helped with.

_Rockwell on acid_, Dean thought in bemusement, letting his gaze travel over the green boughs and fairy lights and candy canes that seemed to have overtaken the rooms wherever he looked. He stopped in the double-wide doorway of the last and largest room. At the end, to the side of the enormous hearth, a nativity scene stood, almost life-sized, the group carved carefully from softwood, oiled and polished to a high satin sheen that glowed under the soft golden lamp lights. He couldn't raise much enthusiasm for the subjects, but the craftsmanship was pretty fucking extraordinary, he thought, walking closer.

Ben stood beside the sheep, beaming at him and he looked down at it, brows rising. "You did the sheep?"

"Well," Ben hedged nervously. "I had a lot of help but yeah, this one's mine."

"He has a natural talent for it, I think," a light tenor voice said behind him and Dean looked around, seeing a short, stocky man standing there, the simple black suit and white collar making his occupation, at least, obvious.

"You must be Dean Winchester," the priest said, holding out his hand. "I was wondering when I'd get to meet you, Ben's been telling me a lot about you. Father McConnaughey."

Dean took the offered hand and shook it, sliding a glance at Ben. "Has he?"

The priest smiled at the wariness in his face. "All good, have no doubt." He released Dean's hand and gestured to the sofa behind him. "I've heard you like a good whiskey?"

Dean cocked a brow. "From time to time." He looked back at the carved statues. "Did you do these?"

"Lord, no," Father McConnaughey said with a self-deprecating laugh. "No, those are the work of Michael. Michael Farino. We were both rescued by Elias."

"Oh," Dean said, nodding and following the priest to the sofa. "You're over at the east tower?"

"Uh, no, actually I have the rooms beside the chapel, along the inner bailey wall. Alex, the lady I met when I arrived, said that there were a few people who would welcome a new priest and the chapel had been empty."

He nodded. "Well, welcome to Lebanon. The … uh … sculptor, Michael –?"

"Michael is the coolest, Dean," Ben said, dropping to floor beside him. "He's nineteen and he plays guitar, nearly as good as Rudy."

Father McConnaughey smiled. "It's all true, a very talented young man. The nativity was his idea, and all the older children have been working on it for the last four weeks. He's really had an impact on them."

"That's … good, I guess," Dean said, glancing at the figures. He leaned forward, his attention suddenly sharpening as he recognised the face of Mary. "He used Alex for Mary?"

Ben laughed, delighted at the recognition. "Yeah, she wouldn't pose for him, too busy she said, so he asked if he could take a bunch of photos of her and she said yes. You anyone else?"

Dean looked more closely at the faces – Joseph was … Maurice? The three wise men … he frowned for a moment and hastily swallowed a laugh as he belatedly recognised Chuck, Mel and Elias. The shepherds were less obvious. He thought one of them was Bobby but without the baseball cap he realised it was hard to be sure.

"That's pretty awesome," he said, looking from the padre to Ben.

"I _told_ you!" Ben grinned.

"Yeah, you did," Dean agreed indulgently, turning to the priest. "It's good to meet you, but I – uh – just got back and –"

"Of course," Father McConnaughey said immediately, standing up. "I won't keep you, a real pleasure to meet you. I'd like to talk to you about a few things, but nothing urgent."

Dean got to his feet, looking at him a little doubtfully. "If it's anything you need, you can see Alex anytime, padre."

The priest nodded readily. "This has more to do with the journeys you will be undertaking, not the needs of the people already under your protection, Mr Winchester."

"What journeys?" Dean asked suspiciously, his neck prickling.

Father McConnaughey's eyes widened slightly. "I was told that it would be you who is undertaking the closing of the gates of Hell?"

Dean's gaze flashed down to Ben, his brows drawing together as he looked back at the man in front of him. "That's – there's nothing solid about that right now."

"I know," Father McConnaughey said in a low voice. "But I can help, when the time comes. I wanted you to know that."

"Have you spoken to anyone else about this? Bobby or Ellen or Jerome?" Dean asked him, taking a step closer.

"No," the priest said, shaking his head. "Father Emilio said I should speak directly to you – and only to you."

"Father Emilio?" What the hell was the Jesuit playing at now, he wondered irritably? "How do you know him?"

"Ah, we spent some time together, when I was younger, in the Vatican."

That put a different slant on things, Dean thought uneasily. "I'll talk to you tomorrow," he said abruptly. "With Father Emilio, if he's around."

"That would be ideal," the priest said. "Don't let me keep any longer," he added, looking at the bruises on the younger man's face. "I'm sure you have things to do."

_Too many_, Dean thought sourly. He nodded at the man and looked down at Ben, wondering how safe it was to leave him with the priest who knew a lot more than he was letting on. "You got stuff you're supposed to be doing, Ben?" he asked, the question coming out a little gruffly.

Ben looked up at him, his eyes widening at the tone, then he nodded, dropping his gaze to the floor.

"Better get on with it, then," Dean said, gesturing to the doorway and following the boy out.

_What the hell was that_, he wondered? Father Emilio and another priest talking about the gates of Hell? And what did they know about closing them that the order didn't – apparently? Or maybe Jerome had new information and had told the Jesuit, who'd passed it on? Whatever was going on, he thought, Alex would know about it and she could fill him in – the broad strokes at the very least.

He shook his head and lifted his hand in acknowledgement of Ben's parting wave, turning for the offices and the kitchens. His stomach was rumbling and he needed to grab something before he went up to the apartment.

"Dean – looking everywhere for you," Mel said, falling into step with him. Dean sighed. "Alex said you got in two hours ago."

He looked at his watch disbelievingly. "Crap."

"We've got those kids from the last intake – the fearless vampire hunters, you meet them?"

"No," he said shortly, turning into the kitchen and looking around for something – anything – to eat.

"They were with Nate and Toby?" Mel said, following the hunter's gaze around the kitchen bemusedly. "You looking for something?"

"Food," Dean growled, going to the fridge. He didn't know what he was doing here, there would be food – his kind of food – in the apartment. He should've gone straight there.

Mel walked around the long pine table and opened a cupboard, pulling out a fresh loaf of bread and a dish of butter and carrying them to the table. Dean looked at it and shrugged inwardly as Mel pulled out a knife and cut a couple of slices from the end.

"Fearless vampire hunters?" he asked, curious in spite of everything else.

"Yeah, too many movies from the old days, but they want to start training as hunters."

He pulled a wedge of cheese and two bottles of beer from the fridge and put them beside Dean, using the edge of the table to lever the top of his and swallowing a mouthful. Dean looked up at him.

"Where's Maurice?" he asked, slicing the cheese and knocking the top off his bottle. "Or Vince?"

"Maurice is over in Michigan right now," Mel said. "Vince is training his plus Rufus' last intake."

"Yeah, well, Rufus is back now, so go annoy him about it, not my problem."

The broad-shouldered blond hunter grinned down at him, pulling out a chair and turning it around, dropping into and resting an arm along the back. "Well, Bobby told me to come to you."

"Huh," Dean grunted through a mouthful of cheese and bread. "Bobby should be training too."

Mel shook his head. "Says he too old for that shit. Told me to talk to you."

Dean closed his eyes. "Who's here?"

"Apart from thee, me and Rufus?" Mel asked sardonically. "Bobby, Ellen, Elias, Nate – I presume he's back too – Toby … that's about it, I think."

"Where's Kelly?"

"Working out of Ghost Valley with Jackson and Riley while they're fortifying the houses over there."

"What's wrong with Toby – or Elias for that matter? They're both experienced?"

Mel shrugged. "Bobby didn't know if you'd seen them in action, and he didn't want the trainees taught the wrong –"

Dean snorted. "They're both alive, aren't they? Since when did we become elitist about training? Tell Toby and Elias they're both on duty from now on, and send Rufus' bunch over to Kelly for a few weeks." He looked down at the beer, feeling his frustration rising. "This isn't fucking brain surgery, Mel! Whoever's here can handle this crap, it doesn't need a rubber stamp from me!"

"Right you are, boss."

"And quit that, will ya?" He stood up, finishing his beer and tossing it in the trash can in the corner of the room, picking up his knife and dropping it in the sink. "Where's Alex?"

"She was in the office when I saw her," Mel said, standing up. "But I think Bobby was looking for you too."

"I saw Bobby," Dean said abruptly. "And I want –"

He cut himself off and turned, walking out of the kitchen and down the hall to the offices, opening the door to the one she used the most and peering inside. Maria and Freddie looked up curiously at him.

"Where's Alex?"

"She left here about an hour ago," Maria said, glancing at Freddie who confirmed with a nod. "She didn't say where she was going, sorry."

He sighed and backed out, closing the door and looking indecisively down the hall. The main stairs were too busy, he thought. Too easy for him to get trapped by someone there again. He turned around and headed for the smaller back stairs that led around the exterior walls, giving access to the narrow casement windows that Liev had put in for sniper fire.

He made it to their floor without seeing anyone else and walked down the curving hall. Opening the door, he walked in and stood still for a moment, listening. He couldn't hear anything in the small apartment and he wondered if she was here. Even if she wasn't, he could still grab a shower and an hour's sleep, he thought. He closed the door and walked into the small living room, seeing the light on desk as he came around the corner and Alex getting to her feet.

"Hey," she said quietly, her eyes warm and welcoming and a slow smile lifting one side of her mouth.

He crossed the room in two long strides and looked down at her, wrapping his arms around her as she lifted hers to encircle his neck, her face tilted up to him. He saw her focus briefly on the side of his face but her gaze shifted back to his eyes and she didn't say anything.

"I'm sorry I didn't –"

"Sssh," she said, tucking her head against the side of his neck, maple-gold curls soft against his skin. He lowered his head to her shoulder and closed his eyes, breathing in her scent, aware that he probably didn't smell as good himself, but unable to care about that right this minute. As he'd known it would, the unbearable weight fell off him and the deep breath he drew in came easily and without effort for the first time in three weeks.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Lebanon, Kansas**_

Felix looked down at the brittle papyrus documents on the table and sighed, picking up the flat-headed tweezers and carefully lifting the top one to the other pile. On the other side of the polished table, now almost covered with similar texts, books, notepads, printouts, pens, pencils, miniature ultraviolet lamps, magnifying glasses and the miscellaneous debris of the researchers, Jerome took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, squinting past his fingers to look questioningly at the older man.

Feeling his gaze, Felix glanced up, mouth twisting into a rueful smile. "I was just thinking that the contents of this library could've occupied me for the past seventy years," he answered the look, gesturing vaguely around. "Instead of wasting my time with accounts of agriculture and the evolution of money."

Jerome polished the lenses and slid the glasses back onto his nose, smiling. "And we might be in a significantly better position than we are now," he said. "Hindsight is ever humanity's tool for regret. Let's not play 'if only'."

"No," the old man agreed readily, looking down at the sheets. "These are a somewhat incoherent account of a battle in the desert in Jordan," he continued. "I've narrowed the dates down to between three hundred and fifty and three hundred years before Christ, and they seem to relate to the nephilim and the angels."

Jerome frowned. "The fallen angels?"

Felix shook his head. "No …" He bent closer to the papyrus. "_'In the east, there was a clash of metal as the giants fought the holy ones, and the earth shook and trembled for days. I saw the flashes of light from the great wings and heard the sounds, higher than the voices of children or animals. And when I looked after forty days of silence I found the dead, spread over the sand, giant and angel lying together and everything around them dead, the plants and animals with blood on their faces, all in the sand together.'_" He looked up at Jerome. "There should have been something left there, if the nephilim and animals were killed, bones at least."

"I'll ask Davis," Jerome said, looking at his watch with a repressed sigh. It was well past three. "Perhaps we can find out from Castiel if the angels have any records of fighting the nephilim at that time."

Felix shrugged. "This is the last of the records I can find where the nephilim are mentioned, except in a legendary sense. It seems to be the last time they were seen as inhabitants of the area."

"What about the area? Do we have a location?"

"It's vague, it could be Jordan, could be further east," Felix said, silver brows drawing together. "Why?"

"There is a reference, in the few texts we found on _Gem Shel Yed'e_," Jerome said, closing his eyes as he tried to remember the exact information. "I'll have to get Aaron to bring those up. But there was a sandstorm that wiped out every landmark, every tree and building and oasis," he said slowly, opening his eyes and looking at the other scholar. "Wiped the desert clean."

"So perhaps the bones are there … just buried?" Felix speculated. "And the nephilim were protecting the Word?"

Jerome smiled suddenly, hearing the words afresh. "Possibly. Maybe. I don't know, Felix – are we chasing stories again?"

Catching his scepticism, Felix smiled too, faded blue eyes twinkling behind his glasses. "Haven't we always been?"

The sharp beep from the situation room made them both turn to look at the archway and Jerome backed his chair from the table, swivelling around to head down the ramp. Along the long wall of monitors, a green light flashed imperiously and he stopped in front of it, bringing up the screen and reading the message from Lourdes.

Felix stood and stretched, pulling off the fine, white cotton gloves he used to handle the oldest records. He walked down the shallow steps, going to stand behind Jerome, squinting at the bright screen as he read the text.

'They made it," he murmured and Jerome nodded.

"And they've found the verifications of the Grigori and the tablets," he said, brows beetling as he printed out the information and watched the files flowing from Lourdes to the computers in front of him. "We'll need to start working on these – can you wake the others?"

* * *

_**Karakum Desert, Turkmenistan**_

The desert horizon was flat in every direction, the enormous inverted bowl of the heavens black and pricked with billions of stars, their light faint but enough to show shadow and edge on the rough ground. To the north, the glow of the still-burning hole showed distinctly against the black earth and sky.

"Easy enough to find," Shamsiel said, looking at it as the three men sat around the small fire. He lifted the pot from the flames and poured the strong tea into bowls.

"It won't be easy to get to the crypt," Penemue remarked dryly, taking a bowl and sipping the scalding liquid. "You can be sure of that."

Shamsiel looked at his brother. The black-haired Watcher looked more like a resident of the desert than most of them, his skin tan and weathered from the wind and sand and sun, brows black and winged over a long aquiline nose, the full-lipped mouth half hidden by a close-cropped black beard. Only his eyes, the bright and piercing blue of the desert sky, gave away a different heritage.

"It doesn't matter," Baraquiel said shortly. "This is the most likely location."

The wind fanned the flames of the fire, casting flickering shadows over their faces. They had walked for fifty one days now, across the deserts of Jordan and Iraq, the dry, rocky plains of Persia and briefly, along the cool shores of the Caspian Sea. It would take longer to reach France and all three were aware subliminally of time ticking away. The longer the goddesses remained free to roam the world, the more changes they would make. Ninhursag's power was far too great to be allowed to burgeon uncontrolled, without limits, and Nintu would be seeking her children, the first-born monsters, and releasing them, endangering the small human population further.

"Do you think Gadriel was right?" Shamsiel asked diffidently, his gaze remaining on the burning crater to the north. "Are the tablets safe?"

Penemue sighed softly. "We have to hope so."

"No one has even suspected their existence for a millennium, Shamsiel," Baraquiel agreed.

"No one needed them for a millennia," Shamsiel argued mildly. "And the prophet has awoken."

"That was for Lucifer," Penemue said, finishing his tea and rising to his feet in a fluid motion. "Not for the Word."

He looked across the black desert. "We'll be there by dawn."

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon**_

Dean woke in sleep-filled snatches, circling consciousness slowly, too comfortable to move. When he admitted at last that sleep was retreating too fast for him to keep up, he lay on his back, eyes closed, letting his thoughts drift. He was home. He could hear the soft whisper of breath beside him, feel warm skin along his. He opened an eye and turned his head, reaching out for the watch discarded last night on the nightstand and squinted at it in the soft grey light from the windows. Early, his mind registered disinterestedly, sharpening as he caught sight of the date. Christmas Eve and early.

Every part of him felt relaxed. Six hours and no dreams had gone a long way to making up for the past three weeks, he thought, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly as he remembered the previous evening. Memory brought a trickle of desire to loose, heavy limbs and a sated nervous system, and he rolled over, sliding his arm over the curve of Alex's hip, shifting close enough to feel her along the length of his body.

Ducking his chin under the silky fall of her hair, he kissed her lightly along the side of her neck, the combination of scent and taste and feel igniting a slow burn through him. Alex leaned back against him, murmuring indistinctly and he lifted his head, looking down at her half-closed eyes.

"Hey, you asleep?"

"Mmmm."

"Alex?" he tried again, sliding his arm under her neck and pillow and moving back a little as she rolled toward him.

"Mmmm."

Her eyes were closed, her breathing deep and slow and even. He smiled a little ruefully, shutting the heat and longing away as his gaze moved over her face, mostly shadowed now.

Once he got up, he knew, the weight would be back. It was only here that it vanished completely, along with the tension and the barely-noticed constant grit of pain and memory and regrets that had rubbed him raw through the years.

He stared at the thick, long lashes, and the shadows they made against the smooth cheek under them, a wash of an unknown and unnamed emotion fluxing through him, catching at his breath and accelerating his heartbeat for a long, drawn-out moment. The emotion, and the sense it brought with it, of some inexplicable yearning wrapped up in fear, widened his eyes and dried his mouth. Teetering on the edge of his consciousness, he could almost see what it meant, see what he needed to know, but he couldn't quite and it dissolved as suddenly as it had come when Alex moved her head, and the light in the room showed him the purply shadows around her eyes and made obvious the hollows under her cheekbones and jaw and collarbone.

Brows drawing together, he wondered how the hell he'd missed it last night. He shifted his weight onto his elbow, leaning over her. Thinner, a lot thinner and exhausted-looking. He wanted to wake her, wanted to demand to know what was going on, but he eased himself away instead, drawing the covers up over her shoulders and sliding out of the bed as quietly as he could, gathering an armful of clothes and walking out of the room, doubt and uncertainty fluttering under his ribcage.

In the living room as he dressed, he wondered who might know what had been going on with her for the time he'd been away. Maria, probably, he thought. Maybe Merrin, if the nurse had seen her any time recently. She was a friend of Alex's. His head snapped around at the knock on the door, and he dragged the t-shirt on over his head as he walked to it.

Ellen walked in as he opened it, looking around the room quickly as she turned back to him.

"We got some more information from the French last night –"

"What the hell happened to Alex?" he cut in over the top of her, his voice low and harsh as he closed the door and walked past her to get his shirt. "She looks like she hasn't slept in a week."

Ellen looked at him blankly. "I haven't seen Alex since you left for McAlester."

"Well, no one's been seeing her, apparently," he snapped, missing the change in the woman's expression as he grabbed his socks and yanked one over his foot.

"I must've missed the memo that went out about checking in on whoever you're living with," Ellen said tightly.

He looked up at her, the second sock halfway up as he heard her anger – and the implication behind the words – straightening and looking at her.

"You think I don't look out for you – or Bobby – if one of you has to be someplace else?" he asked, his expression flattening out.

Ellen looked away. "Dean, Alex is a grown woman and you haven't –"

"I haven't what?" he asked her shortly. "Sent a _memo_ out telling everyone that she means something to me? Guess the fucking argument with Death didn't get it across clearly enough?" He stared at her. "You thought I cared enough about her to send her in after Lisa's death."

"You wanted her kept out of the vampire thing," Ellen snapped back at him, her patience for the conversation wearing thin. It was impossible to work out from him how much or little Alex should be included in the information that flowed in. When he was there, she was sometimes included, but sometimes not. "And no one knew –"

"That was because I –" he cut himself off, before he got any more pissed. "I told Bobby she gets included." He added in a quieter tone. "What's going on here?"

"Nothing is going on," Ellen said. "Alex hasn't been to the order since you left. And the times I have been over to share whatever information we've dug up, I haven't been able to find her."

"And that didn't strike you as weird?"

"No, she runs the whole damned place, I thought she was busy!" Ellen said sharply. "And I didn't realise that you were worried about her, or I would've looked harder."

He ducked his head, flicking a glance at the small hall as he heard the bedroom door open. Alex walked in, stopping at the doorway as she looked from him to Ellen.

"Hey," she said, a little cautiously.

Ellen nodded, her gaze sharpening on the younger woman as she stepped into the room and she saw why Dean was worried. Alex had lost weight and her face looked pinched in the early morning light, her clothes loose and carelessly thrown on, she thought.

Dean wondered how much of the conversation she'd heard, sitting down and pulling on his boots.

"You want a coffee, Ellen?" Alex called from the kitchen, the small noises of cups being set out and the tap running filling the silence between Ellen and Dean.

"No, thanks, hon, I've got to run," Ellen called back, looking at Dean. In a lower voice, she said. "I can see why you're worried but you should've said something to me before you left."

He nodded tiredly. He should've. Should've made it plain – plainer – that he needed to know she was okay, when he wasn't there.

"Jerome wants us at the order around twelve," she added, turning for the hall and the front door. "I'll see you then."

"Right."

He got up and listened for the door's closing, then turned to the kitchen.

"What's going on?"

Alex turned around to look at him, brows raised. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what's wrong?" he said, walking to her. "You look exhausted."

She shook her head, turning back to the coffee pot. "Just having trouble sleeping lately. I'm fine. What did Ellen want?"

He looked at her back, knowing it wasn't the truth, feeling it, but unsure of how to raise that. "French chapter got the books from the Vatican and have more information," he said instead, sitting down at the small table. "We need to be over there around twelve for the update."

Alex flicked the switch and looked down at the counter. "I'll have to skip that," she said, half over her shoulder to him. "There's a problem with the stores they brought in for the east tower people."

_Just tell him_, she thought, _tell him and get it over with_. Her mouth was dry and her palms were damp. She turned around and leaned back against the counter, looking at him nervously.

"I –"

He looked up at the same time. "It would help if –" he stopped as his words ran over hers. "Sorry, what?"

"Nothing," Alex said, dropping her gaze as the impulse to tell him everything, to just get it out and know for sure what he was thinking and feeling, abandoned her. "I'll … um, try to get everything done before you go."

He nodded, looking past her as the pot bubbled and getting up. "Okay."

As he walked to the counter, she moved around the table, heading for the door and he turned in surprise. "Alex."

She stopped and looked at him, one brow lifted, and he gestured vaguely around the kitchen. "You're not eating?"

She shook her head, turning away. "No, I better get going if I'm going to have this sorted by twelve," she said, the words mostly directed at the floor.

He heard the door open and close, the hiss of the pot beside him. And the peace he'd felt last night and when he'd woken was gone, overridden by the replay of her sidling out past him, not looking at him, out the door before he could say anything else, and the question that was starting to haunt him … _did she?_ _Still?_

* * *

_**Boston, Massachusetts**_

Even through the thick stone walls, the demon could hear the crash of the sea against the rocks at the base of the cliff. It was one of the reasons the place had appealed, the scent of salt and the unbearable freshness of sea air permeating the house, tickling memories he'd thought had been burned out centuries ago. But it was just one of the reasons, he thought, looking around contentedly at the generous proportions and elegant décor of the room, the dark, panelled walls and rich Persian carpets and plushly upholstered furniture. It'd taken a lot of work to protect the place from Baal's passing but it was worth it, he thought, lifting the crystal tumbler and half-sipping, half-inhaling the contents. A shame that none of the enemies he'd made through his long history could see him now.

On the polished ebony desk, the goblet of blood bubbled for a moment and he leaned forward, looking at it curiously. Communication by blood was, for the most part, a hit and miss affair. Misunderstandings invariably arose. There was no other choice, however and he concentrated harder on the message sent from the west.

_Passes still closed._

Well, that _was_ bloody fascinating, wasn't it? Well worth the effort. He scowled at the goblet and leaned back in the chair, tossing back the contents of the excellent whiskey before he'd considered what he was doing. No matter, he told himself with an attempt at cheeriness. Plenty more where that came from. An entire distillery actually. Pouring another generous amount into the tumbler, he leaned back again, feeling the heat of the fire behind him as the flames consumed the logs blackening on the wide hearth, hearing the distant roar of the Atlantic storm outside and thinking about the Grigori.

He'd thought that nothing on earth could surprise him, but the fallen angels certainly had. Baeder had said that they'd been a part of Lucifer's army, and had carefully omitted the tale of why they were still walking around the surface of the earth, instead of buried deeply with the others in the accursed plane. The level of Hell that was reserved for those who turned against their vows, who betrayed the trust given to them was not so much a level as the dividing point between the upper and lower levels of the plane, and it was a depthless abyss, the undisputed domain of the daeva who took their job of shredding the souls pitched to them extremely seriously. He'd had no doubt that Baeder knew of the abyss.

That they were still walking around was the point of the meeting they'd arranged through Draxler, a half-breed that Crowley had only learned about in the last few weeks. There were twenty-seven of them, Baeder had told him, plus their children and a dozen or so cambion they'd recruited over the centuries. It was their time, Baeder had said, the time of demons and domination over the human population that was huddled in its shelters, afraid of the dark and all that lived in it.

_Poetic, Crowley had countered, but what's in it for me?_

_The Word of God, Baeder had returned as unerringly as a tennis pro. And power beyond imagination._

There were five tablets, the fallen told him. Three were of no consequence to either of them, simple instruction manuals for the control of the monsters that God had allowed to be created, his own and those of the balancing creator. None of those monsters were of any interest to the inheritors of the earthly plane. No, it was the Demon tablet and the Angel tablet that were of interest and the power they contained that could be utilised for any purpose they deemed fit, the power of God itself.

_Grandiose, Crowley had commented, privately thinking that the tall Aryan was off his nut._

_Possible. Baeder had said seductively. But they were not powerful enough on their own, and Crowley needed their help, their knowledge, to obtain the key to the tablet he'd already acquired._

He'd spent fucking months staring at the stone, giving himself spear-through-the-eye headaches with no appreciable gain. He'd listened.

The tablets, Baeder said, could only be read by a Prophet of the Lord. And only one prophet lived on earth at any one time. And the living prophet was sheltered in a keep of concrete and stone, marked with protection against angels and demons, in Kansas.

_Kansas? Crowley had stared at him._

_Kansas, the fallen had confirmed_. They couldn't break the defences of the keep. Their numbers were too few even with the power they wielded. But an army could.

_Precious few humans to be possessed, Crowley had said sorrowfully._

_The cambion can find survivors, Baeder had offered. Do we have a deal?_

He'd looked at it six ways from Sunday and had finally concluded that although the Grigori would probably attempt to exterminate him in favour of one of their locked-up brothers, if he could come up with a stopper for that, there was no problem. The tablet, apart from its use as a paperweight, was not going to progress without the prophet.

He'd spent some time considering attacking the Kansas settlements before the Grigori could reach them, but had finally decided against it. They were, as Baeder had told him, well-defended. His army could beat themselves against the salt and iron filled walls till Kingdom come without doing much else. Even with the enormous range of weapons left lying around, bringing down the towers on top of the prophet was too much of a risk to use them. And the demon army could still not cross over the wards and salt and iron to get in if the walls lay in pieces before them. No, he needed the Grigori to get and snatch the prophet and bring him out.

_And where is the Angel tablet, he'd asked politely?_

_We haven't been able to locate it yet, Baeder had admitted. Even the cambion, who could smell out virtually anything, had not been able to find it._

_But, the fallen had continued, once the power of the Demon tablet was released and accessible, the Angel tablet would be simple to find._

He rather doubted that. Nothing worked that easily, particularly those things that were the work of God. But, so long as the power of the tablet in his possession was his, he wasn't all that worried about the rest. At least, not for now.

He looked at the books scattered over the desk. Filched from the few surviving libraries around the world, gathered by his demons, they were exclusively limited to three topics. The myth and thin, scattered accounts of the tablets known as the Word of God. The nephilim. And the cambion.

The texts on the Word were few. The Vatican vaults had been mostly cleared before he'd thought to look there. The rest, he presumed, were tucked away in the libraries of the surviving and non-surviving chapters of the society the monks had belonged to. The demons had returned to Tibet only to find that the mountain had collapsed, burying the monastery beneath a half-mile of rock. That didn't seem like a coincidence to him. He had no idea where the other members of the order they'd served might be. The Litteris Hominae, the Grigori had told him. Begun before Christ's time, gathering knowledge and hiding it. That had been all they knew of it.

The books on the half-breed issue of angels and demons and humans were a different matter, however. There was a plethora of information on those. Much fantasy, he had to admit sadly. Nevertheless every myth had its grain of truth at the centre, if one could discern it. Both types were said to be powerful, more so in youth. He wondered why that was. Power usually grew with maturity, not diminished. He put aside the thought for a moment, reviewing what else he knew as he sipped the fine whiskey.

The key was the soul, he knew. It was the key to many things. The offspring had them and even in maturity they were more powerful than their male parent. In every instance of their conception, only a human woman could produce the half-breed. Angels did not, strictly speaking, have genders, only a leaning this way or that to a more 'masculine' energy or a more 'feminine' one, balanced as all things between active and passive, between courage and compassion, between extrovert and introvert, positive male energy, receptive female energy. But a demon soul from a woman sent to Hell could not produce a cambion, even ensconced in a male meatsuit. Another little peculiarity for which he could not find a logical reason. Offspring could be male or female. Neither seemed more powerful than the other.

All lived an extraordinary span of years. All were noticeably different from the human norm. All could be killed, by the removal of the heart.

Draxler had been a good example, he thought, considering the tall, black-haired man who arrived at the house a week ago. Not really attractive, he thought, leaning forward and resting his elbow on the desk. But riveting, for some reason he couldn't define. The man had crackled with a dark energy that drew the eye and the heart. The shoulder-length hair had been combed back from an angular face, dark eyes hooded beneath dark brows, the nose curving slightly over fleshy lips that seemed almost obscenely lush in the otherwise sharp-featured face.

Crowley shook his head, dispelling the memory. The mind behind the face had been exceedingly sharp as well. He'd gotten the feeling that the cambion could see far ahead, and would play every angle to suit his own, unknown agenda. He had a good feel for the characters of others and he'd been unable to penetrate the mask of the man at all, left to find clues in what he had been shown.

Looking down at the empty glass, he let out a small sigh. One way or another, he would get the prophet, he thought pensively. He had the advantage of numbers, and by the time the Grigori realised they'd been duped, he would be far out of reach, and they would be on their own. He leaned forward and picked up the crystal decanter, tipping another couple of fingers into the glass, lifting it to the light and staring at the golden amber liquid it contained. _All good things to those who wait_, his mother had told him more than once. As so it would be.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Lebanon**_

Alex waited on the keep steps, arms wrapped around herself despite the thick woollen slacks, layers of shirts, woollen sweater and thick wool overcoat she was wearing. With the scarf wound over her head and around her neck, she was aware that she was almost unrecognisable, but the cold still seeped in somehow.

The snow had stopped a day ago, but the temperatures had remained low and the cover established in the earlier weeks of the month had remained, impervious to the thin, watery sunshine that filled the courtyard now. She wondered, a little uneasily, how long it had been since Kansas – even northern Kansas – had had a white Christmas like this.

The deep rumble of the car engine bounced from the walls as Dean drove out of the long garage and across the bailey, stopping beside the steps, the hot exhaust leaving a trail that curled up behind it. His hand was on the door when he saw her run down the steps, reaching the side of the car and getting in before he could've gotten out. The passenger door closed with a clunk and he looked over at her.

"You okay?"

Alex nodded, pulling the scarf down from her chin as she registered the warm air flowing through the car from the rattling heater.

"All done," she said, looking through the windshield. "Did you find Father McConnaughey?"

He put the car in gear and eased out the clutch, letting it trundle down toward the tunnel slowly. "No, but if he's talking to Emilio, it's possible he's already over there."

"And he said that he had information about closing the gates? Specifically?" she asked, aware that he didn't necessarily want to discuss this now, while they had time together, on their own. She could feel his curiosity, his worry, about her seeping out when he looked at her. She didn't want to precipitate a conversation that would lead to her news right before he needed to concentrate on the big picture, though. _I'll tell him when we get back_, she assured herself. _Tonight_.

"That's what he said," Dean agreed, nodding at the guards as the gates drew back and they drove through. The snow ploughs had been along all the roads and the asphalt was wet and black, contrasting strongly with the clean, white snowbanks high to either side. "What was your impression of him?"

She thought back to meeting him, in the great hall of the east keep, surrounded by the survivors Rufus and Maurice had brought back, trying to find places to sleep for everyone, food, clothing, blankets … he'd been calm, she thought, and patient, and grateful when she'd sent him down to the chapel with Jeff and Freddie. He'd had a small bundle with him, clothing and books, he'd said, and he'd hugged it close when he'd left.

"He was pragmatic," she said slowly. "Calm. And he's been working hard with the children since he's been here. He's cleaned up the chapel and held services." She caught the edge of her lower lip between her teeth, trying to remember any other interaction she'd had with him, or had heard about. "Merrin told me that he'd volunteered to help with the patients they had who weren't coping well at the changes – said he was good with them."

"All-around good guy?" Dean asked sardonically.

"On the surface," she agreed. "But if he's won Father Emilio's trust, that's a different thing," she added. "That man doesn't miss anything and I don't think he'd be taken in easily."

"No," Dean sighed. "That's what I what I thought too."

He turned off onto the narrow gravel road that led through the forest of illusion to the order's safehold, driving slowly but blithely through the trees which looked solid, but weren't, the tyres crunching over the thick, hard snow and pulling up where the road really ended. They got out and walked to the door, waiting as the locking rings clunked their way through opening and the warmth from the interior flowed out over them as the door opened. Sam grinned at them, standing aside to let them through and pulled the door closed.

"What's the word?" Dean asked his brother in a low voice, following Alex down the stairs.

"Between Chuck's vision, the demon signs popping up in New Mexico and the info backing it up from Lourdes, it's pretty long-winded," Sam murmured back. "Looks like we have a target, though."

"Good."

"Only three susvees, I'm guessing you're not thinking of a front attack?" Sam asked as they hit the floor and crossed the situation room.

Dean glanced back at him, mouth quirking up. "No, hit and run."

"Who do you want to take?"

He looked at his brother as Sam looked over to the men and women sitting around the long polished table, a little surprised at the deference to his opinion. Sam usually included himself as a matter of course.

"Us, probably Elias, Kelly, Maggie and Maurice, maybe one or two of the trainees," he said, climbing the steps to the library.

Sam nodded, and Dean saw the tension bleed out of his brother's shoulders at the decision. He shrugged inwardly. They'd worked together for a long, long time. He could count on his brother to know what he was thinking if things deviated from the plan, which they almost certainly would. It was no big.

He saw Bobby's rather pointed look at Alex as she moved away from the table and sat in one of the armchairs by the fire, unwinding her scarf and taking off her coat. He had to get that clear with everyone too, he realised, his expression tightening slightly as he looked back at the older man.

Jerome looked at them as they settled down and tapped the file on the table in front of him. "Michel sent these last night, the first of the translations of the heretical texts that the hunters retrieved from the vaults." He looked at Dean. "He asked me to tell you that Peter is with them, he managed to join them in Rome."

Dean nodded, feeling a thread of relief that the hunter had been able to get there in one piece.

"So far, much of what they've deciphered is what we already knew or suspected. The texts confirm the existence and the history of the fallen angels that we called the Grigori, giving us a few more details. We also have confirmation that the tablets that were known in mythology as the Word of God were hidden on this plane when the scribe of Heaven, an archangel, known variously as Mattara, Mattatron, Metatron – the 'keeper of the watch' – or simply the Voice, finished them and vanished."

"Vanished?" Bobby asked curiously. "From where?"

"From Heaven on completing his task, apparently. A meeting was recorded in the year fifty six A.D. between the apostle, John, and an angel believed to be Raphael. According to the text which was found in the writings and teachings he set down as his gospels, the angel appeared to him looking for the scribe. John had no knowledge of him and Raphael disappeared." Jerome looked at Bobby, whose brows had risen. "This is why we needed these papers, Bobby. The Church has held onto such seemingly meaningless secrets for the length of its history, deeming them to be too fanciful for public scrutiny."

He looked back down at the file. "The Church texts also confirmed a battle that we found a reference to here," he continued. "Some three hundred years before Christ, there were several recorded accounts of a war between the nephilim and the angels, in the desert to the east of the Qaddiysh fortress. The account we had here was a first-hand one but the observer only heard the battle and did not see it with his own eyes. The Church accounts are eye-witness and although not completely reliable, they give us more information about the event."

He flipped open the file, scanning down the page, looking up at the people seated around him. "This takes place some twenty-two hundred years or so after the Flood, you understand." There was a murmured assent and he looked back down to the file. "The accounts detail a battle of thousands. Thousands of nephilim – the giants of Moab – and thousands of angels. The screams of the dying angels supposedly killed every other living thing for a hundred miles in every direction –" He looked up with a slightly wry smile. "There's no explanation for how the observers escaped this fate."

"I expect a little exaggeration from the older accounts," Katherine said dryly. "Is the location given?"

Jerome shook his head. "Just east. In the desert somewhere between the borders of Jordan and its neighbour, Iraq."

"However," Felix said from the other end of the table. "Geologically and archeologically speaking, we have a possible location." He looked at Davis who shrugged.

"Around this same time, three hundred years B.C. there was a well-known event. A sandstorm that lasted three months in the same region and buried everything there. A number of digs were conducted from the late eighteenth century until 2010 and bones have been uncovered," Davis admitted, with an uncomfortable cough. "They were denounced and ignored as an anomaly."

"What kind of bones?" Katherine turned to look at him.

"A number of entire skeletons, preserved under the layers of sand," Davis told her, his face stony.

She smiled at him. "Come on, Davis, spit it out."

"The first skeletons found, near Al Qurayyat, were seven feet tall, proportional, showing no signs of deformity. The genetic assay was deemed to be contaminated because the strand contained three extra pairs of chromosomes," he said reluctantly. "Another skeleton was found in the vicinity in 1999. It was considered a fraud and the reports were buried."

"Considered a fraud why?" Dean asked, looking at him. The archaeologist was extremely uncomfortable, he thought. Over being wrong?

"The skeleton, although humanoid, had wings."

Bobby let out a sharp bark of laughter. "Yeah, so they buried it and pretended they never found it?"

"I believe so."

"The existence of the nephilim and the angels isn't the point," Jerome cut through curtly. "The third account of the battle mentions that it was believed a great treasure was hidden in the desert in the area and the battle between the giants – the nephilim – and the angels was over the treasure. The location was a series of caves, some believed that went down to the centre of the earth. The caves were known as _Gem Shel Yed'e_."

"This legend was the original basis for the tales of the Arabian Nights, Aladdin and the treasure guarded by a djinn of enormous power," Felix interjected helpfully, ignoring the look that Katherine sent his way.

"The treasure being the Word of God?" Sam asked Jerome.

He nodded. "And possibly other things that Metatron brought with him from Heaven."

"If it's buried under god-knows-how-much sand, how are we supposed to get to it?" Maurice asked.

"That is another part of the translations that the French sent us," Jasper said, gesturing to Jerome for the relevant page. "There was a legend in Syria, possibly circulated by the same reports of the battle, that a mortal who had been tested in fire and blood would come and the desert would draw aside and reveal the caves," he continued, skimming down the page as he spoke. "It's vague, as are all legends, of course, but it was repeated as far east as Persia and on the borders of China, taking on a local variation but basically the same." He looked around the table. "We believe this was kept alive in oral folklore for a purpose."

"Legend outlives truth in a lot of cases," Ellen remarked.

"Precisely," Jasper said.

"A mortal?" Dean looked at him. "Anything more specific that that? Kind of covers a wide range."

Jasper shrugged. "The legend was already threadbare a thousand years ago when the Church began collecting these tales. Peter may find a more detailed account as they go through the texts."

"And we think that the other tablets are there?" Rufus asked, glancing at Dean.

"The Angel tablet is there," Father Emilio corrected him, stepping toward the table. "That is why the battle was fought there, and why the sandstorm was sent. They were looking for the Angel tablet."

"What about the others?" Sam looked from Jerome to the priest.

The adept looked at Father Emilio, brows raised quizzically, and the priest shook his head. "We don't know where they are, and they haven't found a reference to them yet."

"What about the Grigori," Dean said, shunting the problematic information of the tablets aside. "Bobby, you said something about demon signs."

"Yeah, coming and going lately, but over Taos, according to Michel's geophysical satellite info," Bobby said, pushing his cap back. "Looks like they're stuck between the end ranges, waiting for the passes to open."

Dean looked at him for a moment, thinking of the route he could take there. "The susvees will get through alright. We don't have the manpower to take them on directly …" He turned back to Jerome. "Is there any other way we can kill them – fire, anything – that can be done with some distance?"

Jerome's eyes widened a little behind his glasses. "I haven't heard of anything but cutting out the heart, but I'll ask Peter to get them to look for something."

"We're not going in there and taking them on hand-to-hand," Dean said, looking from Maurice to his brother. "We want as many as we can dead, but worst case, destroy every vehicle they have, their shelter and just disrupt the crap out of them, make them think again about coming for us."

"Holy oil might have an effect?" Alex suggested diffidently, looking at Father Emilio. "They were angels once."

Dean turned to look at her, the idea pinballing through his head. He looked back at Jerome. "Lucifer didn't want to cross it and he was Fallen."

"Do we have enough holy oil left after Atlanta?" Bobby looked at him.

"We've got some left," Dean said slowly, thinking of the ceramic bottle in the store-room at the keep. "Cas might be able to get us more."

* * *

Alex stood up stiffly as the meeting ended, scholars and hunters drifting into small groups to discuss the possibilities of dealing with what they were facing. She saw Dean, Sam, Bobby, Ellen and Maurice head for the hall at the end of the long room, probably to find an office to get the details of the proposed attack down, she thought tiredly.

"You do not look well, Alex," Father Emilio said behind her, and she turned to him, forcing a smile.

"Just tired."

He looked at her for a moment and shook his head. "Not just," he said, sighing as her gaze dropped and she didn't respond.

"You have met Father McConnaughey, I believe?" he continued, turning to include the priest standing next to him.

"Yes," Alex said, grateful that he hadn't pursued the question. "You seem to be settling in, Father."

"I am, my dear," he said, glancing up at Father Emilio. "With help."

"Dean said that you had information for him about closing the gates of Hell?" she said bluntly to him, glancing at the Jesuit briefly.

The two men looked at each other, Father Emilio lifting a shoulder slightly in a small shrug. "Yes, we are waiting on confirmation from Peter but the texts here had more information than I'd realised."

"Why didn't you raise it at the meeting?" she asked curiously.

"That task is not for all to know," Father Emilio replied, his gaze moving casually around the room. "There is a lot more rumoured to be written on the tablet than merely instructions for managing Hell."

"How do you know that?" Alex frowned at him. "Jerome said that all the myth surrounding the tablets was fragmented and questionable."

"The Church texts as well," the priest agreed readily. "But in the prophet's vision there is more information."

She frowned as she tried to remember the details of Chuck's vision, half-seeing the type-written pages in front of her. She had a copy of them at home.

"Why Dean?"

"Death said it was foreseen that he would close the gates," Father Emilio said, looking down at her. "It was why he wanted to take you."

Father McConnaughey stepped closer to them. "The lines of destiny are still changing, that is not a sure thing," he said reprovingly to the Jesuit. "In the Greek Septuagint, it was written that all things on this plane had a balance, an anti-dote, an opposite, and humanity would evolve to the point that it would not need the guidance of Heaven nor the punishment of Hell. A contender would be chosen then to undertake the necessary trials to close the Accursed and the Divine planes from this one forever."

"Tests," she said flatly, looking from one to the other. "What kind?"

Father McConnaughey shrugged slightly. "The details are on the tablet," he said. "It's possible that Chuck may see more, if the visions continue."

"Or if we can retrieve the tablet," Father Emilio added.

She felt the room shift, as if the world had moved under her feet and swayed slightly. Lack of food, she told herself, seeing that neither priest had noticed. A quick look at her watch told her it was almost six. She wasn't going to last here much longer.

"Will Dean see us, when he is finished with the hunters?" Father Emilio asked her.

"He said he wanted to talk to you both," she said, looking around the room. It would mean that he wouldn't be free for hours, she thought. And she needed to get home. "Would you excuse me?"

Father Emilio inclined his head, and Father McConnaughey nodded, both men's eyes following her as she turned away and walked down to the situation room.

"Will she be a help or a hindrance?" Father McConnaughey asked quietly. Father Emilio watched her stop beside Jerome.

"She will be truthful," he said thoughtfully. "And she will not stand in his way if that is the path that he chooses to take."

* * *

Jerome looked up as Alex paused beside him. "That was a nice sideways solution to the Grigori," he said, smiling at her.

"It might not work," she said.

"But it might," he countered lightly. "I think you would find what we do here to be interesting, Alex."

"You want to know why I could tap into my soul," she said, a little dryly. He smiled back.

"Ah. Dean mentioned that, did he?"

"Yes."

"You're not interested? You have a questioning mind," he said.

"I have a job, Jerome," she told him, smiling to take any sting from the rejection. "Is anyone heading back to the keep?"

"You need a ride?" He looked around at the library. "Of course, Dean will be here for hours. And you don't look well," he added, brows beetling a little. "Aaron can take you, wait here."

He pressed a button on the console and Aaron appeared a moment later from the doorway beside the elevator.

"Can you take Alex back to the keep, Aaron?" Jerome asked the young man. "And see if Kim finished her projections on the possibilities of the success rate of the births."

"What projections?" Alex asked him sharply.

"The data from Tawas and Lake West, and here, has given us a hundred percent successful conception rate," he said, looking up at her. "You know how unlikely that is in nature, there's always something not quite right at any given time."

She nodded impatiently at him. "And?"

"I asked Kim to calculate some statistical probabilities on the pregnancies that will go to term, taking into account any physical problems of the mothers and the fathers that are known. That's all."

Aaron looked at her. "We can go now, if you're ready."

She turned away from Jerome and nodded at the young man, forgetting about the meeting and everything else as the professor's words sank into her. _Problems with the mother_. The phrase richoted around her mind. _Problems with the mother_. She needed to see Kim, as soon as they got to the keep.

Following Aaron up the stairs, she couldn't rid herself of the feeling that if anyone was going to have problems, it would be her.

* * *

Dean looked at his watch as he and Sam walked back down the hall to the library, groaning inwardly as he saw the time. Nine o'clock. He was starving and he looked around for Alex as he walked into the long, book-filled room, seeing Jasper and Davis arguing quietly by the fire, Katherine buried behind a pile of books at the table, the two priests talking to Felix in the chairs grouped to one of the stacks. He walked down the steps to the situation room, turning as he saw Jerome sitting at the comms desk.

"Have you seen Alex?" he asked the professor, walking slowly to him.

"She didn't seem to be feeling well, so Aaron took her back," Jerome said, looking around at him. "That was around six."

Dean kept his gaze on the monitors as he nodded. "Thanks."

"Dean?" Father Emilio said from the library stairs. "Do you have time to discuss what Father McConnaughey raised?"

Dean looked at him for a long moment, debating the priorities. Even if he left now, she would probably be asleep by the time he got back, he thought, the flutter under his ribs back. He would talk to her tomorrow, he thought. Just lock the fucking apartment door and ignore everything and everyone else.

"Sure," he said, turning back to the stairs and going up them. "Let's hear it."

* * *

_**Derweze, Turkmenistan**_

The lurid and toxic glare of the burning cavern was lessened by the dawn light, filling the eastern sky as they walked toward it. The _Irin_ ignored the glowing crater, moving around the edge as they searched from the western side in sweeps back to the village for the building that had been shunned by the local tribe, a tomb built into a low rise, with steps leading down into the crumbling desert earth.

It was still there, the thick timber door gone with the passing of the angel of the abyss but the stone walls intact, and at the back of the sepulchre, the signs of recent building, roughly cut stone pasted together with weak mortar.

"This is it," Baraquiel murmured, using the hooked hilt of his long, curved knife to dig out the thin joins and loosen the stones.

"This is recent." The dark-skinned fallen angel said, moving beside him to wrestle a stone free. "I believe we'll have company."

Baraquiel nodded, working at the crumbling mortar. At the doorway, Penemue watched the steps and the lightening sky beyond. Easier than the palace under the water at Alexandria, anyway, he thought, listening to his brothers below. There was a good possibility that the Morning Star had a store-house under that as well, although it might've been cleaned out before the city sank into the sea. Despite being locked up, Lucifer had increased his power over the last thousand years, humanity's evolution had been distorted and had followed paths it was never intended to take, paths that had opened gates to the accursed plane and sped the lines toward the release of the angel faster than any of them had realised.

And Heaven had aided that, he thought. Castiel had been distracted and unnerved in Jordan, telling them of a hidden conspiracy within the Eighth, riddled through the ranks. Michael was indecisive, unwilling to provoke outright civil war. Raphael was smooth and reasonable, knowing that whatever he did, it would not be proven now that Lucifer was gone. The soldier had been more than worried, Penemue realised. He'd been afraid.

The man who had altered the lines, who had killed the devil, had been a surprise as well. He'd thought he would be … larger, somehow. The thought brought a faint derisive smile. Was he the first zephyr, announcing the winds of the storm of change, or the storm itself, he wondered? They'd watched the battle, in the country on the other side of the world, in the flawless depths of the crystals. At the time, he'd felt ashamed, leaving the mess that Heaven had created to be cleaned up by a mortal – _an ordinary human man_ – while they held to their safety, deep within the canyon. And they'd thought he'd failed. When he'd risen to his feet and stepped across the flames, it'd been a revelation, of sorts. And afterward, reflecting again on the battle between man and angel in the silence of meditation, Penemue had wondered if they had seen the Creator's vision, come to fruition at last.

It was impossible to tell from the brief meeting they'd had with Winchester and his brother.

"We're through!" Shamsiel's cry echoed from below and Penemue turned to scan the desert again. It was empty and lifeless. In time, the animals might return. Or they might not. He swung around and descended into the tomb, ducking his head as he passed through the rough hole his brothers had made through the wall and following them down the worn stone steps into the earth.

The tunnel, roughly hewn and hacked from the soft stone, twisting in a spiral as it descended. One wall radiated heat, from the gas cavern that still burned, close to them here. The other wall was cold, and the Irin sensed that the tunnel had been carved along the fault line between a harder slab of upthrust rock and a softer, conglomerate layer that had fallen in at one point. The steps were more worn to the right, giving them the uncomfortable of being canted sideways as they walked.

Within the conglomerate, hundreds of pockets of gas, rising slowly through the spaces between the particles of rock from the core of the planet, existed and the men who were not really men moved cautiously, senses stretched out through the darkness for the traps that were almost certainly present. The floor flattened and Shamsiel stopped, lifting his hand to halt his brothers.

"The air is thicker here," he said in a low voice.

He bent, his fingers finding a small stone in the passageway. Straightening, he threw it gently into the widening chamber ahead of them. They all saw the stone shudder and slow in the air as it passed through the invisible barrier and shatter into fragments before it hit the floor.

"Welcoming," Shamsiel commented brightly.

Baraquiel looked along the rock walls and the uneven floor. "There must be a locking device here."

Penemue pointed to the floor a yard ahead of them. "That section is paved, this is not."

Shamsiel turned to the walls where the paving began and sighed deeply. Holes of various sizes riddled both sides, some large enough to push a melon into, others fist-sized, some barely large enough to insert a finger. He glanced back at Penemue.

"Ideas?"

Penemue walked to him, lifting his torch to study the holes on the left-hand side of the tunnel. "The other side is unstable. The catch will be on this side," he said thoughtfully, examining the edges of the roughened holes. "Like the stairs, this has been used for a long time." He lifted the torch higher and nodded. "And where there is use, there is wear."

Shamsiel peered past him. The fist-sized hole was eighteen inches under their eye-level and the lower edge was smoother than the others. He watched, unconsciously holding his breath as Penemue slid his hand into the hole, fingers moving incrementally along the inside.

There was a soft groan from the rock and the air in the widened section of the tunnel seemed to clear. Baraquiel bent and picked up a loose stone, tossing it in. The stone landed on the paved stones with no ill-effects.

"Your bravery and wisdom shall be remembered forever in an ode I will compose when we're home," Shamsiel told Penemue as the Irin withdrew his hand.

"I'm sure that will be magnificent," Penemue said dryly, the sweat beaded on his face shining in the torchlight. "But the next time, you can spring the trap."

He wiped his arm over his face and dragged in deep breath, walking across the paving and into the next section of tunnel.

Winding downwards, the darkness seemed to press closer around them as the tunnel narrowed, the torch flames upright, flickering only with their movement.

The chamber appeared abruptly, the steps finishing and the tunnel bulging outward, a spherical cavern that had been carved into the likeness of a bird's cage, thin, fluted columns outlining the edges and joining together at the apex of the domed ceiling. On the other side, opposite the stair, the door was iron, bound and strapped, the panels in between engraved and embossed with sigil of the Lightbringer.

Standing at the foot of the stairs they looked suspiciously around the cave. It would be too easy to move incautiously now and die. Baraquiel touched Penemue's shoulder, pointing at the fine holes that pocked the rock walls behind the columns.

"Paranoid, wasn't he?" Shamsiel said sourly as he saw them as well. The floor was smooth and polished. No one had walked on it.

"Behind the columns?" he asked, looking at the narrow space between the rock and the column closest to him. "The rock has been worn."

Penemue nodded. "Only one of us can proceed past here, I think. There are instabilities in the rock floor that will react if too much weight is on them."

"Do we draw straws or shall I volunteer to show that my organs are not puddling up?"

Baraquiel snorted. "Of the three of us, Penemue is the lightest."

The dark-haired _Irin_ nodded. Baraquiel was taller, broader across the shoulders. Shamsiel, although shorter by an inch or two, was stockily built, with wide shoulders and a deep, barrel chest. Both men carried more muscle on their frames than he did.

"Start composing," he said to Shamsiel, turning sideways and crabbing along the gap between the rock and the columns, careful to touch neither.

* * *

In the desert above them, the wind sighed and lifted the dust from the gravel plain in slow eddies as the sun warmed the rock. Even the locusts hadn't managed to penetrate the stone sarcophagi that surrounded the tomb's entrance. The heavy lids shifted slightly, and charcoal smoke spiralled from the sky down into the coffins, animating the desiccated bodies that lay within.


	8. Chapter 8 A Net for Butterflies

**Chapter 8 A Net for Butterflies**

* * *

_**Derweze, Turkmenistan**_

Shamsiel and Baraquiel watched their brother inch along the rock walls, placing his feet carefully.

"Don't touch the walls," Shamsiel said again. The look Penemue sent him was arctic, despite the sweat that rolled from the Watcher's face and dripped from the ends of his hair.

"I – don't – need – a – commentary – brother," he ground out slowly, easing himself past a protruding curve in the wall. One more column and he would be in front of the door. He stopped, closing his eyes and waiting for the tremble to pass from his tense muscles then crabbed sideways past it.

"Well?" Baraquiel asked. "What are you waiting for?"

"It needs a key," Penemue muttered, staring at the elaborate lock in the iron door.

"What?"

"A key!" he said loudly. "Needs a key!"

The door shivered slightly in the jamb and Penemue's eyes widened as he looked at it.

"_Zir oln vorsg_," he said loudly.

The door swung open inwardly and Penemue looked back. "Voice."

"In Enochian?" Shamsiel frowned. "Why?"

"Lucifer's crypt. Lucifer's key." The dark-haired watcher stepped through the open door and stopped just past the threshold. Behind him, Baraquiel and Shamsiel saw the room beyond light up, hundreds of torches leaping into flame.

Penemue stared at the long, rectangular cavern. A hundred feet long and sixty feet wide, it was full, from end to end and floor to ceiling, with chests and crates, boxes and barrels and huge ceramic jars, baskets and cartons and cases, all different sizes, some carved, some plain, a few of the white cartons were marked with the blue and orange logo of a global freight company. He turned to the side and looked back at his brothers.

"Where do you think I should start?" he asked dryly.

Baraquiel shook his head and Shamsiel stared wordlessly at him.

"A lot of help you two are," the Watcher remarked sourly, turning into the room. He moved along the wall between piles of stacked objects, looking at them as he passed.

Some of the markings on the boxes, woven into the baskets or carved into the stone, he recognised, indicative of the contents held within them. Others he'd never seen before, and he let his fingers brush over their surfaces. Many of the containers were neutral, imparting no feeling, good or bad, through his senses. A few were filled with a glow, an optimism or light or feeling of rightness, somehow. And several, he snatched his hand back from, looking at it for signs of the corruption and taint he could feel through the coverings. He stopped beside a large crate, looking at it curiously. The sigil carved into the side he knew. Danyael's, one of the highest-ranked of the seraphim. He'd had a shield, he remembered distantly. A shield that could protect any from harm. He wondered if the crate contained it.

He turned his head slightly, feeling the faintest brush of air over one cheek. Ventilated somehow, he noted worriedly. The air was warm.

Moving faster along the rows, picking up the smaller items to see what was under them, Penemue worked his way down the long cavern, turning at the end. There was no order to the way the objects had been stored, he thought in annoyance as he saw a cursed diadem in a basket alongside a legendary sword from the pre-Viking era of Scandinavia.

Not so much a collector, as a hoarder, the Watcher considered, staring at a huge, woven basket marked with the waxed sigil of Ra. Had he collected them to use against others, or to prevent these objects from being used against him? So far as he knew only one thing had had the power to destroy the archangel – the spear the man had used on him. And that had disintegrated as soon as it had done the job.

He walked up the next crowded and uneven aisle, automatically cataloguing and filing away what he recognised, examining the things he didn't with care. A tea chest had been left partially in the passage and he opened it, smiling slightly as he saw the gleam of black metal inside. Never common, the skill required to make both metal and the long, curving knives had been restricted to a few artisans, but the Chinese weapons were worth their weight in gold, metal and the strength of them and the spells that had been laid on them with their making could kill a demon of any hierarchy with the exception of the archdemons, those Fallen who required a weapon of Heaven to penetrate the evil of their essence.

He pulled six from the pile in the chest, sliding three of the blades through the sides of his belt, kneeling to lay the other three flat together and wrapping them quickly in the long cloth wound around his waist, knotting the ends and slinging it diagonally across his chest. He straightened up and saw the box sitting on the pile in front of him. Eighteen inches by fifteen, the wood was plain and polished to a soft sheen, the worked need to accommodate the curling grain showing the maker's skill in forming it. On the top, an oak tree had been carved in a simple, stylised design, behind it an eagle with wings outstretched. On the front, a heavy iron lock with a delicate chased engraving closed the hasp. He reached for it as the torches in the room bowed and trembled.

The door to the tomb, he realised, wrapping an arm around the box and running through the tight passages, twisting this way and that to avoid the containers that protruded a little too far into his way.

"Penemue!" Shamsiel's shout of warning came as he reached the iron door, dragging one of the knives from his belt.

"Here!" he yelled, throwing the blade across the room, its slow revolutions calculated precisely by the waiting Watcher, who caught it in the eyeblink between driving back the desiccated corpse who lunged at him and taking the single step closer to the room. Shamsiel felt the weight and balance in the moment his fingers closed around the wire-wrapped hilt and he swung at the corpse, the keen edge of the black metal removing its head. The demon inside boiled and roasted as the metal touched it, and the headless body dropped to the floor.

Penemue looked at the two animated mummies edging their way around the walls toward him, putting the box down on the floor behind him and drawing the second and third blades from his belt. He spun the knives, his wrists rotating smoothly, absorbing their weight, the grip, the balance and listening to the faint singing of the metal as it cleaved the air. To his right, the demon hesitated, looking at the black blades and the skill with which they were wielded. Behind him, Baraquiel and Shamsiel had killed the two demons left with them and there was no out. Penemue watched its indecision with a distant amusement.

On his left, the demon either hadn't known what the knives were or had missed them, edging sideways toward him, gaze fixed to the floor. An incautious movement as it looked up to see how close it was triggered the trap and the demon and the corpse it filled fell to the floor, a dozen iron needles protruding from the back of its head down the spine to its buttocks. Penemue looked at it curiously, wondering if the needles had other powers or if the long-dried up nervous system had simply been short-circuited beyond the demon's ability to manipulate the body. He glanced back up to the right, and saw the demon was still hesitating in the centre of the narrow path, staring down at the body on the floor.

Turning, Penemue sheathed one blade and picked the box from the floor. He looked across the width of the chamber at Baraquiel. The red-haired Watcher nodded and he threw the box across the room, watching Baraquiel catch it safely. He looked back at the demon and pulled the iron door closed behind him, turning to the left and starting to move back toward the others.

On the other side, the demon began to move back as well, crabbing as fast as it could along the wall.

Shamsiel looked from his brother to the demon, stepping back toward the stairs behind, waiting to see who would make it first. He let the knife swing lazily in his hand.

"Take your time," he said derisively to the demon. "Your ex-master's traps aren't as forgiving as we are!"

The demon's gaze flashed uncomfortably at him and back to the narrow gap between rock and columns and it slowed a little.

Penemue ignored the progress of the demon, focussing his attention on the gap path, the long knife in his hand held against the flat of the outside of his thigh. He was gaining on it, he thought distantly, hearing Shamsiel's stream of jibes, hearing the odd creaking that came from the corpse whose tendons and meat had long since dried to the consistency of ancient leather.

The demon slowed further and Shamsiel grinned at it. He was ready when the smoke suddenly poured from the mouth, the body crumpling stiffly forward through the columns, back and sides prickled with the needles. The ribbon of smoke flowed sinuously around the wall, flickering toward him and undulating over him. He lifted the knife, the tip hitting the rock ceiling above him and the smoke convulsed like a cloud filled with lightning, the ashes of the demon falling over the Watchers in a drift.

Baraquiel shook his head and wiped a hand over his face in disgust. "Next time you want to try that, stand further from me, Shamsiel," he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

Shamsiel's smile flashed white against the ebon of his skin as he shook his head, fine, black ash floating from his hair. "I'll make sure of it, Baraquiel."

Penemue eased his way out from behind the last column and looked at them. "What do you think triggered them?"

Baraquiel shrugged. "Who knows? We need to get going now before more come," he said, taking the third blade from his brother.

"No debate," Penemue agreed. "It's a long walk to Lourdes."

* * *

_**Taos, New Mexico**_

Hubertus Draxler stood outside the long ranch house, his face lifted to the gusts that were freshening in the north, rushing down the mountainside toward him, his eyes closed. The scent of snow was strong in the wind and he thought that the next front was already humping its way over the ranges, lifting and falling and picking up moisture as it travelled south. Beyond the blizzard, he could smell other things, almost anything he chose if it came to that, but there were no humans on the long, long stretch of interlocking mountain ranges that divided the country, not within the limits of his abilities, at any rate.

He opened his eyes and looked around the compound, the pupils of his eyes elongating and widening to take in all available light. He saw without colour, and sometimes without depth, if he was looking at something very distant. The German had estimated his night vision to be somewhere between that of a wolf and that of a cat. It was a meaningless comparison, he'd thought at the time. He had many abilities that exceeded human capabilities.

Turning back to the house, he walked along the long porch, hearing the conversations in the rooms inside. He'd seen the thick dossier Baeder had on him, although he didn't know where the information had come from. It was detailed enough – the disturbing night of his birth, his upbringing, at first with the woman he'd called mother, then later, with his father. Escaping from those bonds and discovering his abilities at the age of thirteen. _Too late_, Baeder had told him sourly. Too late for the extraordinary powers that he should've had at an earlier age. But they were more than enough for him, had kept him employed and wealthy enough to be able to travel the world and pursue the search for knowledge that drove him. The Grigori had found him five years ago. By chance, he'd thought at first, hiring him for a contract hit. But nothing had been chance, and he'd realised that was the first thing he should have remembered. Now, he worked for them. They had knowledge. And power. He would leave eventually, he thought, to pursue the solitary search again. But after he'd milked them dry of everything they knew and had sent Baeder personally on his way to see his fallen brothers.

The perimeter was secure. Nothing could move in the mountains with the snow filling the passes and making every approach treacherous. Nothing could move without him being aware of it, in any case. That was an anomaly, he'd learned. The reach and strength of his senses, both physical and other. None of the others had that. It was not a clue to the things he needed to know. Merely an interesting fact.

Walking back to the house, he stopped by the window, listening to the conversation inside. The outside temperature was minus twenty-five degrees but he didn't feel the cold, or the heat, his body adjusting to extremes with ease. Not an anomaly that ability, something most of his kind and the other half-breed species shared. It was useful.

"We have not found a satellite that is still transmitting photographic data, Erik," a male voice inside the room said stridently. Hans, Draxler identified him. Tall, as they all were, wheat-blond hair and pale blue eyes, skin that looked like dough, white and pasty and prone to wind-sores here in the mountains.

"What about the geophysical data?" That was Baeder, the clipped and brusque voice oddly light for the size of the man.

"No, Marilyn has not been able to locate one that wasn't shut down from its ground station yet." Dietrich's deep voice said languidly. Ekhart was more frightening than Baeder. Cooler. More focussed on the end result.

"What do we know of their defences?" Baeder said impatiently, the muted clinking of glasses telling Draxler that he was at the long sideboard that served as a bar, the top covered in bottles of alcohol and glassware.

"They were quick," Hans said. "The central castle consists of two towers, to the west and to the east, with fortified baileys in between. With the weapons we have available, we could bring the buildings down, that is not the difficulty."

"No," A smile was in Dietrich's voice and Draxler could imagine it, reptilian, without humour. "No, the problem is that it might kill the prophet and we would have no way of finding the next one in time."

"Time is something we have an abundance of, gentlemen."

The last voice was female. Marilyn Harrer, sister of Karl. An intelligent and, judging by the reactions of most of the men he'd seen in her company, beautiful. For himself, he couldn't judge her appearance.

"_You can procreate, Hubert," Baeder had said to him, years ago. "You are completely compatible with humanity."_

_He'd shaken his head and turned away. He had no interest in women, nor in men, for that matter. His libido had been completely sublimated in killing and in the search and he had no time or inclination for anything else, particularly not the meaningless and time-wasting physical and emotional traps that people fell into deliberately, under the guise of romanticising a basic biological drive._

"Not any more," Baeder contradicted her, but gently. "The demon will work out a way to capture the prophet if he is not led by us first. And that power, in his hands, would be a catastrophe for more than humanity."

"The upstart calling himself Crowley?" she asked archly. "He is a fool."

"Inexperienced, at this time, perhaps," Dietrich said lazily. "But no fool. Do not underestimate humans because they are not angels, Marilyn."

She sniffed and he heard her walk to the sideboard, pouring out a drink. "How then do you plan to get in, Dietrich? You have obstructed every suggestion I've heard."

"The same way we acquired our scientists in '44, _liebchen_," Dietrich said, getting to his feet and walking toward her. "Drax and the others will be able to narrow the prophet's location when we are closer. We will destroy the castles we are sure he is not in, and take whatever hostages we need to force them into handing him over."

She laughed brightly, a high, trilling sound that was devoid of humour. "These places, these people are not the confused and nationalistic simpletons of a denuded and humiliated country, Dietrich. They are hunters, at their head. Crowley's army will not be able to cross the walls, no matter how many pieces they're in and neither will we!"

"But the nephilim will be able to," Dietrich countered softly. Draxler heard a soft gasp from the woman, closing his eyes and imagining the man's hand bite around her arm, or her shoulder. "And so will the cambion. The warding that guards against us and against demons does not affect them."

The half-breed heard her step away from the man, heard the screak of her heel on the stone floor and the sharp crack of her hand striking his skin.

"Do not handle me as if I am one of your prostitutes, Dietrich," she said in a very low voice.

The click of her heels was audible to Draxler all the way to her room.

In the large living room, Erik exhaled. "Please, watch your temper, Dietrich. We have a long way to go."

"Tell her to be more respectful of her elders and I will not need to," the other man said without inflection.

"You think the half-breeds will be able to get in undetected?"

"Not undetected, no," Hans clarified. "But with subterfuge, yes."

"Why would they allow them into their strongholds?" Erik demanded.

"Because they have been to see the Qaddiysh," Dietrich said, dropping back to the sofa, the ice in his drink tinkling against the glass. "And they do not know if the nephilim they meet are the children of the Watchers – or the children of the Grigori."

_Wolves in sheep's clothing_, Draxler considered. It was a reasonable plan. Provided the hunters had not met the nephilim in Jordan. One of them had been the vessel of Lucifer, he knew. And another had killed the Morning Star in single combat. That alone made them adversaries that demanded a certain respect. He did not think the Grigori were inclined to grant that respect.

Turning away from the window, he moved silently along the porch and let himself into the back of the house, leaving his coat and boots to drip off in the mud-room. If these three failed, there would be the others, he thought, ghosting through the house to his room. He would be interested to watch it play out.

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon**_

The alarm went off at eight, its strident beeping shattering his sleep and blasting the fragments of the dream away. Dean groaned, his left hand slapping at the machine on the nightstand and silencing it as he swept his right across the bed beside him, feeling cool, empty sheet where he'd been expecting warm, smooth skin. Eyes opening resentfully in the morning light flooding the bedroom, he looked first to the other side of the bed and then around the room, lifting a hand and rubbing it over his face as he realised he was alone.

He'd gotten in, about as expected, around one. Bone-tired, his head aching from the thirteen hours of talk and planning and working on the details, first with Bobby and Maurice and Ellen and Sam, then with the priests. He'd have done better to have worked it out on his own, he'd thought, and then gone through the details with the others when he had it down.

She'd left a light on and he'd slunk into the bed, hearing the soft whisper of her breath, his heart sinking a little as he also heard the steadiness of it. Sound asleep. Deeply asleep. Again.

Inching across the smooth sheet, he'd heard her soft sigh as he fitted himself against her, and the headache and the tension and the nagging sense of worry that something had been forgotten or left undone, unthought of, had disappeared completely, his arms curving around her and a feeling of peace cloaking him as he'd closed his eyes.

He'd slept deeply too, he thought. Deep enough that her getting up hadn't woken him – which was pretty damned deep. Listening to the silence of the apartment, he thought she'd gone out somewhere. Another opportunity missed. Another chance gone. He levered himself onto his elbows, frowning at the door as he reviewed that thought. Chance for what? To _not_ to tell her some more of what he was convincing himself that he _wasn't_ feeling?

How long was he going to play this game? This I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about game with himself? Pushing back the covers, he rolled out of the bed and walked down the hall to the bathroom, reaching for the shower taps and flipping them on. He leaned on the sink and stared at himself in the mirror above it as he waited for the water to heat up.

The face that stared back at him looked more or less the same as it had for the last few years. More lines. More shadows. The same steadfast worry in the back of his eyes that he tried not to see when he shaved. Not just Sam anymore. Sam and the world. Now he had whole towns to worry about personally. People he knew. People he cared about. And … a woman who took all that worry and vanished it … just by being there.

Steam curled into his peripheral vision above the shower door and he let out his breath, turning to the barrage of hot water and letting it hammer him into a kind of insensibility.

The memory of Lisa's face, her disappointment when he hadn't responded to what she'd said, chewed at him. The deeper disappointment later when he'd told her that he didn't.

"_This is exactly what you wanted. No one to hold you back, Dean. No one to make demands on you. No one to make you feel bad for not loving back."_

He leaned against the tiled wall in front of him, swallowing the sudden rise of bile as that memory flooded him. It hadn't been true, not the way she'd meant it. But it had as well. And he'd hated himself for letting her see it. And he'd hated her, a little, for throwing it back at him when he'd had no choice in what he'd had to do.

Straightening up, he tipped his face to the water, eyes screwed shut. He didn't even know what the hell he was talking about – _thinking_ about, since he definitely wasn't talking about it – he thought. He'd kidded himself once and that had stabbed him. He didn't know what it looked like or felt like … _yeah, you do_, the small voice in his mind murmured contradictorily. _You know what it looked like, what it felt like, what it sounded like. The house in Lawrence and John and Mary Winchester and a whole world of it then. You know. You're just afraid it's not for you._

_And did she? Still?_

He couldn't blame her if she didn't. He'd hardly been around. Hadn't said anything. Had come and gone as if – as if – it hadn't _mattered_ to him, whether she was there or not. Twisting the taps off, he stepped out and grabbed a towel, aware that his pulse had sped up and an urgent, formless nervousness was filling him.

Running water into the sink, he scraped carelessly at the stubble, wincing as the keen blade nicked him under the jaw, and dropping the razor into the water swirling around the drain. _Slow down_, he told himself. _Just … be cool_.

But he was rushing again when he got back to the bedroom, throwing clothes around, looking for clean ones, socks getting stuck on damp skin and every pair of jeans mysteriously stained with oil, along the sides where he usually wiped his hands if no rag was close enough.

He stopped as he came into the kitchen, frozen in place by the sight of the brightly wrapped present sitting in the middle of the table, a note displayed prominently on top of it.

_Fuck. No._

It was Christmas, he'd known that, had seen the preparations, had recognised the date the previous day, had been aware of all those things and had still managed to put it so far out of his head that it'd never even occurred to him that she might do something like this.

Walking warily to the table, he picked up the note, reading through it. _Errands. Back soon. Merry Christmas. Hope you like it. Love, Alex_.

_Just … _love, Alex_. Like someone you care about_. He pushed the thought aside and picked up the gift. It was bulky and heavy. Not very heavy, he thought, holding it in one hand. Heavy enough. Soft.

He ripped the paper off and stared at the almost-familiar folds in his hands. He was holding a jacket. Soft, heavy leather. Dark brown. Straight cut with a collar high enough to shield his neck. Where the hell had she found it? He shook it out and pulled it on, the smell of leather enveloping him instantly. It fit. Better than his father's ever had, he thought irrelevantly. It was warm, double-lined on the inside. Putting his hands into the wide pockets, he felt a piece of paper and pulled it out, reading it.

_I do, you know_, it said. _I do love you_.

He dropped into the chair behind him, rubbing both hands over his face, curling them into bone-white fists and holding them there. _There if you want it_, the small voice said in the disbelieving silence in his mind.

* * *

_**Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan**_

"Could save ourselves a couple of hundred miles walk if we cross here instead of going around," Shamsiel said, looking at the expanse of dark blue water in front of them.

"A few days? Do you think that'll matter much?" Baraquiel asked, looking along the snow-patched coastline at the steel boats that were still moored against the small harbour's stone breakwater. Ice was already forming, growing out from the shore, the boats glittering in the thin light.

Penemue drank his tea in silence. By a rough calculation, and presuming that nothing untoward happened, which seemed highly unlikely, it would take them four or five to cross Europe in the middle of winter. The coldest winter he'd seen for some time, he amended dourly to himself. They might reach France by spring. The Atlantic would troublesome as it always was in the changeover seasons. Then from the coast to the centre of the country on the other side. They would be there by summer. At the very earliest.

The flutter of wings echoed from the stone walls and dissipated over the water. The men turned to see the angel, standing with the sun behind him, looking thoughtfully around. On the sea wall, a gull blinked at him, wings lifting slightly in confused alarm.

"There you are," Balthazar said brightly. "That box you're carrying really does distort your images."

"Balthazar, it's been a long time," Penemue said cautiously, wondering what the angel was doing here.

Tilting his head slightly, Balthazar smiled as he saw the wariness in all three faces. "Relax, Heaven has no idea of what you're pursuing. Castiel sent me to get you to Lourdes."

"Why Lourdes?" Baraquiel asked abruptly. "You can take us to Kansas."

The angel's gaze cut away to the sea. "The situation in Heaven is a little delicate right now," he said slowly. "And Cas felt that the timing could be managed more effectively if you were closer, but not that close."

Penemue's brows drew together. "Someone's watching us? You're waiting to see what they will do to affect this new balance of power?"

Balthazar turned and looked at him, eyes narrowed. "You were always frighteningly astute, Penemue."

"Manipulating the humans will not endear them to Heaven, Balthazar," Baraquiel said gravely. "It will backfire if they know that help was given in drips instead of whole-heartedly."

"The humans are dealing with their own problems," Balthazar told them. "And if we do not discover the source of the conspiracy before it's too late then that will only add to their difficulties." He looked around the cold shore again and shivered. "Now, will you come or would you prefer the four thousand mile trek through winter?"

Glancing at each other, the Qaddiysh got to their feet and walked to him, standing close together. Balthazar reached out and closed his eyes and the gull croaked in surprise and hopped from the wall, wings spreading out as it flew away from the empty quay.

* * *

_**Cascade d'Ilhéou, Pyrenees Mountains**_

The tight rocky valley was filled with the soft roar of the falls, and blanketed in white. Penemue looked around as Balthazar released them, brows rising.

"I thought you said Lourdes?"

"The stronghold is a little way into the mountains," Balthazar said with a vague gesture. "And this is the only landmark they've given me."

"So, where is it?" Shamsiel turned around.

"A quarter mile to the south-east, I was told," Balthazar said. "There will be someone to meet you."

The beating of wings was almost inaudible beneath the sound of the rushing water and Baraquiel shrugged as the angel disappeared. "That is south-east," he said, pointing to the narrow end of the valley. "From memory, there was a walking track that led here, and through the peaks."

"A lot of good that will do us," Shamsiel said, stepping into the deep powder that covered the ground.

* * *

_**Christmas Day, West Keep, Lebanon**_

The keep was full of people and Dean walked through them, captured now and then, smiling and talking his way out of longer conversations as he searched for Alex. He saw his brother, by the fire with Bobby and Ellen and Father Emilio, catching his eye and giving him a slight grin while Vince walked beside him, telling him about the last batch of trainees, aware that he was nodding and murmuring in the right places without having taken in a word.

"Gimme a minute, Vince," he said to the other man, stopping him mid-sentence. Vince blinked and nodded as Dean walked away.

He had a gift for Ben, a rare find. He couldn't see Alex anywhere in the crowded rooms but from the music playing at the other end of the interconnected living areas, he had a pretty good idea where the boy was.

Seated around the nativity, several teenagers and more than twenty children sat around two young men, listening as they played their guitars, the melodies almost duelling in the battle to see which of them had the greater mastery over the strings. Rudy he recognised, the singer's long dark hair and tan skin easily identifiable even at a distance, the younger man who sat beside him he didn't.

He could guess who he was, though. Michael, the talented sculptor and friend of Father McConnaughey's. Ben had been right, he realised, head inclined as he listened to the intricately played music. The kid was almost as good as Rudy, and it was probably only the years between them that was making the difference. Both musicians had an instinctive feel for the notes, the tension in the music and a soaring talent in adding their own embellishments to the well-known ballad.

"Good, isn't he?" Sam said as he came up behind him.

"They both are," Dean acknowledged. "Make a difference to long winter nights here."

Sam laughed softly in agreement. "And the long summer ones."

"You seen Alex anywhere down here, Sam?" Dean turned to look at him. Sam shook his head.

"I haven't seen her since last night," he said, smiling at Ben as the boy made his way to them. "Merry Christmas, Ben."

"Hi Sam, Merry Christmas," he said, smiling shyly as he handed a small, wrapped gift to Dean. "I thought you'd like this."

Dean ducked his head, taking it and pulling the slightly larger gift from his pocket and handing it over to Ben. "Thanks. Merry Christmas."

"Is it for me?" Ben's eyes widened as he looked down at the clumsily wrapped elongated shape.

"Yep." Dean pulled the wrapping from the square, plastic cover and felt his brows rise. "Where'd you get this?"

Ben grinned up at him. "Rudy found it for me, on the last run they did. Do you like it?"

"Hell yeah, I love it," Dean said, looking down at the flat black cover. Barely visible until tilted to the light, the embossed letters just gave the band's name, nothing else. He knew what it was. The collection had been on his must-get list for years before the world fell to pieces.

"Guess I'll have to stick a CD player in the Impala now," he said with a half-rueful smile.

Ben tore the paper from his present and the brothers heard his breath shoot out in a whistling exhale.

"It's ceramic. Doesn't need much in the way of sharpening," Dean said, looking down at the long, white-bladed knife. "Won't corrode, non-magnetic and non-conductive."

He felt Sam's gaze on him and glanced at his brother, shrugging. "Just a piece for the kit."

"It's awesome, Dean," Ben said, throwing an arm around his ribs as he kept staring at the knife. Dean hugged him back a little awkwardly.

"Yeah, well, look after it. They're impossible to find now, and a long way past impossible to make."

"I will!" Ben shot off suddenly, the blade held against his side to avoid stabbing anyone as he went to show his friends.

Sam watched him go, and turned to his brother. "Where did you find it?"

"Chicago," Dean said, looking around the room. "Specialty store that was still standing when I met with Death."

"I remember Dad had a couple in the trunk, but I thought he took them for the truck?"

Dean nodded distractedly. "Yeah, I got one back. Good for cutting through pretty much anything, harder than a steel blade."

"You okay?"

Hearing the note of concern, Dean looked back at Sam. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You look … agitated," Sam commented mildly. "What's going on?"

For a moment, Dean was tempted to tell him, tell him and ask what he thought. The impulse disappeared as he realised that he didn't know what to say. He shook his head. "Nothing, I just want to find Alex. I'll see you later?"

"Yeah, count on it," Sam said, watching him disappear into the crowd.

When he'd heard what his brother had done to bring her back, he'd thought that maybe, finally, Dean had found someone that he could let in. But watching his brother over the months that followed, he thought he'd been mistaken. Dean was relaxed around her, more so than he'd seen his brother with anyone else, but he didn't talk about her, and he hadn't slowed down or changed what he'd been doing since they'd been together. When he'd asked him not to let Alex see him as a monster, he'd wondered if the relationship was as strong as he'd thought. He and Ellen and Bobby had watched the hunter, looking for clues about his feelings and finding none. Alex was in his life, but none of them had gotten the sense that she meant any more to him that Lisa had.

Except for what he'd done to bring her back.

He was on edge, Sam thought, catching another glimpse of him as he worked his way back through the crowd to the hall. About Alex, for some reason. He watched a moment longer and lost sight of him, shrugging inwardly. He didn't think Dean would talk to him about it even under torture. It wasn't how his brother was wired.

* * *

_Office_, Dean thought, threading his way through the tightly packed corridor. She'd be in the office.

He had no idea of what he was going to say when he finally found her. What he could say. What he wanted to say. He thought he'd just start with the jacket and see where it went from there.

Reaching the door, he put his hand over the knob and stopped, looking down at it. He felt more nervous now than he had when she'd first told him, he realised, feeling the flutter under his ribs and the clamminess of his hands. Then, it'd been rejection that had worried him. What the hell was he scared of now? He decided he didn't want to know, turning the knob and clearing his throat as he pushed the door open.

The office was empty.

He looked around, just to be sure about it, but it remained stubbornly empty. Pulling the door closed, he leaned back against the wall, the flutter up near his throat now and his mouth dry.

"Merry Christmas, Dean."

He opened his eyes and looked around at Ellen, nodding to her and Bobby who stood slightly behind her, both looking at him questioningly.

"Uh … yeah," he managed to say. "You too."

"You okay?" Bobby asked gruffly, his face half-shadowed by the cap, but the tone indicating that he didn't think Dean was.

"Fine," Dean said, straightening up. "I was looking for Alex."

"I saw her heading up the stairs a while ago," Ellen said, glancing at Bobby.

"Great," Dean said, forcing a smile. "I see you later."

"Not like you to turn down a big feed?" Ellen looked at him in surprise.

He looked at his watch and swallowed a groan. "Nah, I'll be back down," he said, walking past them. "Just got … a … thing …"

He let the words trail off as he forced his way back down the narrow corridor and into the hall, aware of the scent of roast and gravy, vegetables and pie and bread spreading slowly through the lower levels, his stomach complaining about missed dinner, breakfast and now another meal, his mouth filling uncomfortably with saliva at the appetising smells.

_Later_, he told himself, reaching the stairs. Right now there was only one thing he wanted to do, one thing he needed to do and if he couldn't get through it soon, he didn't think he'd be able to later. _Just tell her and talk it out and find out one way or the other_, he thought, his feet pounding the stairs as he accelerated up them.

He ignored the well-wishes of those he passed, leaving heads turning to look after him as he shot around the curving landings and kept going, dodging those coming down and apexing the corners wherever he could. He hit the floor and slowed down, forcing himself to not think about where he was going to try next if she wasn't here either.

Pushing the door open, he walked in and closed it, a long stride taking him through the short hall.

Alex looked up as he came through the living room and into the kitchen. She sat at the kitchen table, her face pale and tense, and he stopped at the other end, licking his lips.

"I wanted to –"

"Dean, I have to te –"

"I really need to get this –"

"Could I just say this fir –"

He stopped and looked at her, nodding reluctantly. "Sorry, go ahead."

"I'm pregnant," she said flatly.

For a moment, the past and the present collided and he felt a sense of disbelief that this exact moment could be playing out again. Every thought that had been churning around his head for the last two days vanished without a trace as he tried to understand how the past had doubled back on him. It wasn't Lisa, standing there at the end of the table. It wasn't Chitaqua or the past. It was Alex. And here. And now. And he still couldn't make himself take it in.

Alex looked at him, her pulse accelerating and her breathing constricting. She'd gone over and over this moment in her mind and the cool, expressionless stare she saw wasn't how she'd envisaged his reaction. She'd thought he might be surprised, or angry, or … something else, but not this.

She made a vague gesture, her gaze dropping to the table. "This wasn't how I wanted to tell you," she said uncomfortably. "Kim thinks Death restored me – restored everything, and the goddess probably kicked it all back into working order when she went through Kansas," she continued, not looking at him, hearing the welling silence in the room between words, a silence that was making it hard to draw a breath to keep talking. But the silence was worse and for the first time in her life she needed to fill it, to keep it filled so she wouldn't have to listen to it. "I just wanted you to know that it – it doesn't – you know – it doesn't – if you don't want that – that's –"

She stopped abruptly, his silence too sharp, her throat too tight, her fingers curling tightly around the back of the chair she stood behind. She wasn't sure he was even listening to her.

Dean heard the words, heard the increasing discomfort in her voice, saw her shoulders hunch a little inward, saw her knuckles whiten on the chair back. He knew those tells. Knew what they meant. Knew how fucking bad it was he was standing here not saying a goddamned thing. He couldn't think of a single thing to say. Not a fucking word.

"It explains why I felt so tired all the time," she tried again, forcing the words out past the horrifying thought of bursting into tears in front of him. "And – well, all the other stuff …"

She looked up, past him to the hall. "I'm really – I think I'll just …" She let the words trail off, clamping her teeth together and forcing the pricking behind her eyes to remain there as she walked around the table and out of the kitchen.

He heard her light steps through the living room and down the hall, heard the bedroom door open and shut and the noise snapped him back to the present as thoroughly as a slap.

"Alex," he muttered, turning sharply and following her to the bedroom. He turned the knob and pushed. Nothing happened. He hadn't even realised there was a fucking lock on that door. They'd never used it.

Leaning against the panels, he closed his eyes. What the fuck was he doing? What had he done?

Lisa.

_I don't. _

His decision.

_Get. _

His doubts.

_A second. _

Duty.

_Chance. _

Responsibility.

_I can't. _

I will be there.

_Take that. _

Boom.

_Again. _

BOOM.

_No. _

_BOOM!._

_I don't. _

_I can't_ lose you.

He lifted a hand and knocked loudly.

"Alex."

Inside the room, Alex looked at the door. Hormones, Kim had said. They would amplify everything, turn the volume up to maximum and they were perfectly normal. But making a scene was not normal. Bursting into wild and uncontrolled sobs, which she could feel like a thunderstorm in her head and chest and throat – that was not _normal_. Freaking them both out with that level of emotion was not normal and wouldn't help. She'd told him and she still didn't know what he felt and it felt as if she'd been cut open and left to bleed out. She curled up on the bed and buried her face in the pillows and tried not to make a sound.

Dean slammed his fist against the door. "Alex! Come on! Please."

He couldn't hear anything inside the room. _Perfect_, he thought, a thread of anger twisting its way up through the panic. He'd searched for her all morning to try and tell her how he felt and the whole thing had just nose-dived off the rails and into something else, something wrapped around in feelings and memories he knew he hadn't dealt with, hadn't gone through. How was he supposed to be able to deal with this if she wouldn't let him near her?

Just fucking _perfect_. Turning away from the door, he walked back down the hall and grabbed the jacket from the hooks beside the door. He'd cool off, he decided. Eat something. Just think. Think about it. He opened the front door and walked out, dragging the soft leather jacket on one-handed as he pulled it shut behind him.

* * *

_**Chambre d'ombres, Pyrenees**_

Mist began to curl around them as they walked down the narrow trail from the ridge line, swirling around their feet at first, then rising until they could hardly make out the trail and the rock and the trees to either side had disappeared in the amorphous grey air.

"This isn't natural," Baraquiel said as he slowed, picking out the way foot by foot.

"No, keep moving down," Penemue agreed. "The valley opens, I think."

"Why would Cas think we're being watched?" Shamsiel watched Baraquiel's heels in front of him, stepping where the taller man stepped, despite the effort it took to lengthen each stride.

"Gadriel confirmed the Grigori were moving, in the United States as well as Europe," Baraquiel's voice was ghostly in the ever-thickening mist ahead of them. "We are visible to them, as they are to us. And if it is Raphael who is leading the rebellion in Heaven, you know he would contact them first."

Penemue nodded. "The question is not if we're being watched," he said wearily. "But by how many. Whoever the ruler of Hell is, the knowledge of the tablets will have led him to us."

"Is it even possible for a mortal to contend the closing of the planes if the time is not yet?" Shamsiel glanced over his shoulder at his brother. "Humanity is a long way from being ready."

"I don't know," Pemenue answered pensively. "The lines were changed when Lucifer was aided to escape, and again when he was killed. Kokabiel tells me that Hell is stirring, he can feel the demons massing at the gate in Utah, though they will have to wait until the way is clear before they can progress. He said that the lines are dim now, as if much of their power has been diminished – or removed. He cannot tell which."

"What about the twin forces of Creation?" Baraquiel asked, his voice low. "Can we track them and trap them ourselves?"

The dark-haired Watcher at the rear shook his head. "We cannot open that box without being drawn into it ourselves. Only those possessing a soul have sufficient connection to the divine to use it. And I believe they are in Asia now," he added. "They will circle the globe many times in their duties. Nintu will find her first-born too quickly for us to contain them."

"I do not like that everything rests on the humans who've survived, brother," Baraquiel said.

From the mist ahead of them, a quiet, deep voice answered. "And we do not like that we are dependant on creatures from the other planes to help us to clean up the mess that your brothers made."

The red-haired Watcher stopped abruptly, Shamsiel jarring an ankle in trying to prevent himself from cannoning into his brother.

"Andante?" Penemue peered through the mist, watching it curl away as two figures walked toward them.

"Yes," Peter said brusquely, looking at them. "The mist will hide us for a short time only from more penetrating eyes, we have to hurry."

He turned away and Penemue caught sight the woman accompanying him, tall and thin, with close-cropped dark hair framing a bony and beautiful face. She waited for the three Qaddiysh to pass her and fell in behind him.

"Your safehold is guarded by illusions?" he asked, half-turning his head back to her.

"This used to be a well-travelled area," she said in a low, warm voice. "The valley has been hidden from mortal and immortal view since before the Crusades."

A wise precaution, Penemue thought, given the wealth of information it contained. "How many do you have here?"

"There are fourteen of us here now," she said, her tone sharpening unaccountably. "Peter and I will accompany you to America."

He nodded. "Will the defences hold here?"

"Against most things, _oui_, yes," she said, the shrug implicit in her voice. "Against the archangels – or archdemons, probably not."

The mist parted abruptly and they walked single file along a narrow rock ledge, the gaping black entrance of a cave directly ahead. The Pyrenees, the Watcher knew, were largely limestone, and the cave systems held within the long range were extensive.

Peter slowed as he entered the darkness, moving cautiously over the rough ground to the left. Baraquiel frowned as he saw the smooth rock wall ahead of them, the hunter still striding toward it. It dissolved as Andante passed through, and beyond a long, narrow cavern bent and twisted into the mountain, stalagmites and stalactites forming a tight obstacle course through which they had to wind, keeping in single file and occasionally twisting to the side as the dripping of water echoed faintly throughout the passage.

The cavern widened and Penemue looked at the underground river that appeared to their right, smooth and oily dark in between shallow rock banks, flowing steadily south. It emerged from a seamless rock wall, under it, he thought, without a ripple to show the exact location. Next to the river, a large door pierced the same wall, set tightly and slightly recessed into the stone.

Peter stood in front of it, and slid a large iron key into the lock, turning it sharply. From deep within the rock, they heard the multiple clunks and rattles as the locking mechanism turned slowly, releasing the door. The Watchers' eyes widened as they saw it lift, rising into a slot above the doorway, the gaping holes of the mortices showing the width and depth of the tenons that held it firm when it was down.

Peter walked through, and stopped, gesturing to continue. Beyond the doorway, a huge curving room, a hundred feet across and eighty feet high, was edged by a narrow stone staircase, spiralling down to the floor below them.

Elena moved past them, leading the way down the stairs, and Penemue followed her, hearing his brothers' footsteps behind him. The walls had been smoothed and straightened, he saw, although not embellished. On the floor, banks of computers and telecommunications equipment lined them; in the centre, a long, wide table stood, lit from underneath and showing a map of the globe on its clear surface. He could see different coloured lights marking various locations around the world and he slowed as he approached it.

"The blue lights are the surviving chapters of the order," Elena said quietly, stopping behind him as he stood looking at the table. "Those red dots are demon activity or demon signs. The yellow lights show the position of the fallen – yourselves included," she said, glancing around as Baraquiel and Shamsiel stopped beside her. "The green flashes are the little we've been able to track of the goddesses – Ninhursag in China and Nintu in Australia right now." She pointed to the trail of small flashing green dots.

"How are these able to see each type of event or non-human?" Penemue asked, brow creasing slightly.

"The parameters exist in our databases." A tall, thin man walked from a wide doorway at the far end of the room, gesturing expansively as he came toward them. Long, grey hair was drawn back into a thin ponytail at the nape of his neck and thick glasses magnified bright green eyes, giving him a misleading look of constant surprise. "We have been able to access some satellite data, most geophysical but I have finally been able to capture the GOES data and also a military satellite that is looking for different signatures in the atmosphere – I've modified both to track changes and anomalies in surface and atmospheric conditions that match our parameters."

"We give off changes that are discernible to a satellite?" Shamsiel looked at him in astonishment.

"You generate a different energy force and wavelength to humans or other life-forms," the man told him with a slight smile. "So yes, I can 'see' you and the other fallen angels, although I cannot differentiate between you and a full angel, or between the Qaddiysh and the Grigori."

"This is Michel," Elena said dryly. "He is our most useful member, I think."

Peter walked around the table. "Michel, the _Irin_, Penemue, Shamsiel and Baraquiel."

"It is a pleasure to meet what one has only ever read of in legend," Michel said, inclining his head. "Your signals were weakened when you emerged from the crypt," he added thoughtfully, looking at the pack on Penemue's back. "The box? I believe it distorts your energy waves."

Baraquiel nodded. "We have been told that by an angel as well. It is a doorway, between this plane and others, so that's not surprising."

"May I study it? While you're here?" Michel asked, his voice calm, but his eyes very bright.

Penemue shrugged slightly. "It does not function without the appropriate key – it seeks only a particular type of … energy," he said, using the same definition as the programmer had. "I'm not sure what you can learn from it in this place, in this state."

"But I can look, _oui_?"

"Yes." The Watcher slid the pack from his shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. He lifted out the wrapped box and watched bemused as Michel took it reverently and carried it to a clear desk space in front of the computer monitors.

"Come, you should meet the others," Peter said, looking past them to the doorway from which Michel had entered. "We need you to help with the translations of the older texts – there are ambiguities."

"When do we leave for America?" Baraquiel asked him.

"In two days," Elena said, turning to him. "From Hendaye. The Atlantic is not going to be kind to us."

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon**_

Sitting between Maggie and Rufus, Dean half-listened to Rufus retelling his version of a hunt he'd done in '81, eating automatically, smiling when everyone else smiled, struggling.

He'd thought it through, after Dave'd told him. He'd thought about everything. What he wanted and what he could give and what it would take. He hadn't thought much about the future because he'd pretty sure then that he didn't have one. But when Death showed him, he'd thought about what he could become without her, and what he would do. And he'd thought about it all again. He'd never asked. And he hadn't told her. What he wanted. What he felt. He'd thought just feeling it was enough.

"Dean," Rufus leaned over and looked at him and he blinked, looking back at the dark eyes.

"Yeah."

"Got a bottle of very good whiskey in the office."

Looking down at the table, he realised he'd finished eating. "Yeah."

"When do you want to get started on this?" Maggie looked up as he got up.

"Get started on what?" he asked, unable to remember what he'd said five minutes ago.

"Taos." Her eyes narrowed slightly as she studied him. "The fallen angel attack."

"Right," he agreed, nodding. "A couple of days, if the weather holds."

He backed away from the table and followed Rufus out of the room, wondering what exactly he'd said at the table. He couldn't remember any of it.

"Sit down," Rufus said as he opened the door to the small office the hunters in the keep used for record-keeping and planning when they were there.

"What'd I say about Taos before?" The question was out before he realised he was going to ask it.

Behind the desk, Rufus pulled out a bottle and a couple of glasses and set them down, unscrewing the lid and pouring a double for each of them. "Said, we'd take a load of long-range stuff, the holy oil and sneak up on them, pin them down and do as much damage as we could," he answered, his mouth lifting on one side as he pushed one glass toward Dean.

"Right."

"What's going on?" Rufus picked up his glass and let a mouthful trickle down his throat.

"Nothing."

"In a pig's eye."

Tossing back the glass, the smooth whiskey roaring gently down his throat, Dean pushed the glass back across the table, leaning on the edge tiredly. He rubbed a hand over his face and shook his head.

"To be honest, I don't know," he said quietly. "Alex's pregnant."

Rufus paused for a fraction of a second as he poured a little more whiskey into the glass. "Given that every woman between fifteen and fifty is knocked up, here and in Michigan, maybe that shouldn't've come as a surprise."

Dean rolled an eye at him. "I didn't think of it that way."

"She couldn't," Rufus guessed, remembering the conversation he'd had with her about Dave.

"Until Death pulled her back and the creation chick kick-started her again, yeah, that's what we thought."

"What's the problem?" Rufus asked from behind his glass. "Thought you two were pretty simpatico? Better than with Lisa."

Dean looked down into his glass, letting his breath in an audible exhale. "I –"

Rufus waited. He'd found over the last three years that the man sitting on the other side of the desk would talk, from time to time, when he needed to, but he couldn't be pushed into it. It didn't come naturally, and it took time.

"It was different with Lisa," Dean finally said. "I didn't … it wasn't …"

He hadn't been anywhere close to love with Lisa, Rufus knew. But he thought that Dean was a lot closer to it with Alex. Not admitting it, not looking at it, maybe. The pregnancy was going to screw that up, he thought, that entire situation coming close to replaying itself in his head, with all the predictable repercussions.

"You worried about what might happen to Alex?" he asked casually.

Dean's gaze snapped up to meet his. "No," the response was instant. Then he looked away. "I don't know. Maybe," he admitted unwillingly. "It's not just that."

"What'd you tell her when she told you?"

The silence stretched out and Rufus rolled his eyes. "You said something, right?"

Dean finished the contents of the glass. "It was a – surprise," he prevaricated, pushing the glass back across the table.

"Uh huh," Rufus said, taking the glass and looking at him. "She told you she was going to have a kid, yours, and you didn't say a word?"

Dean nodded, his eyes on the desk.

"And then what'd she do?"

"She said she was tired and went to the bedroom and locked the door."

"Huh."

"Pour the fucking whiskey, Rufus."

He tipped an inch into the glass and pushed it back. "And what'd you do?"

"I left."

Dean looked back up as he heard the deep sigh on the other side of the desk.

"Not thinking straight, or you don't want to take this on?" Rufus asked.

Straightening in the chair, Dean stared at him. "I took it on before," he said defensively, hearing the doubt in the older man's voice.

Rufus watched him, thinking about that. "So what's the problem?"

It was a good question, Dean thought. Not the problem. The difference. The difference between carrying a responsibility and being in a life. The difference between feeling duty and feeling something else … something else entirely.

"You worried about losing her – or getting something you don't think's right for you?"

"You didn't want it," Dean snapped at him, cornered by the old man's insight. "You're here, Dominique's in Tawas."

Rufus laughed softly. "I had it, Dean," he said, the smile fading a little. "I had all of it and while it lasted, nothing was ever so good."

"But it didn't last, did it?" Was that, finally, why he couldn't let that last bit go?

"Thirty years ain't no shabby innings, kid," Rufus said quietly, watching the younger man over the rim of his glass.

"Thirty years is why I'm still sane," he added, his eyes dark and utterly serious. They narrowed as he watched the expressions flit over Dean's face.

Leaning back in the chair, he shrugged. "I never had a choice," he mused, half to himself. "Nothing on earth would've stopped me from being with Nance, no matter what the risk, no matter how much I was afraid that I might lose her. All that time, that time we had together, it was worth it all." He finished his whiskey and set the glass down on the table. "You got any doubts, then it's best to turn away, Dean. Life – ordinary life – is hard enough without being sure, and this life is impossible unless you got no choice in the matter, unless you can't live without her."

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Sam looked up at Father Emilio impatiently. "Why are you pushing this so hard, padre?"

The priest stared back at him. "Because your time – what you must learn – is better spent here, helping Chuck to understand the visions, helping all of us to understand them."

"Death told Dean he was going to close the gates," Sam countered tightly. "So, we already know where we're heading, and I'm not leaving him alone without backup on this job!"

"He has multiple people to provide sufficient backup, Sam –"

"Not who know him as well as I do!"

"The contender for the closing of the gates, in particular the gates of Hell, is not set," Father Emilio said patiently. "The visions themselves show that what has already been changed in the lines can be altered further – and what is particular to you, we believe is more important that what Death saw happening earlier this year."

"What do you mean, 'particular to me'?" Sam asked suspiciously.

The priest gestured vaguely toward him. "Your blood, the changes that have already overcome you," he told Sam. "These would give you a stronger chance of success."

"How?"

"I do not know that precisely yet," Father Emilio hedged around the question. "But you can see that in Chuck's last vision, there was no clear sign that it would be Dean either."

Sam shook his head. "We don't have the tablet, and we don't know how we can possibly get the tablet," he said firmly. "And until we do, we don't know what the trials are going to require. Or even if Chuck is gonna be able to read the damned thing."

"This is all true," Father Emilio admitted readily. "But if you and your brother put yourselves at risk in the same ventures, and we lose both of you – what then will we do?"

"Someone else'll have to step up, I guess," Sam said with a careless shrug. "And you and Father McConnaughey know a lot more about Chuck and his visions than anyone else, so you don't need me here." He looked at the priest narrowly. "Why are you two pushing at me to stay?"

The priest sighed and sat down at the end of the table. "I understand why your brother feels compelled to take the fight to the Grigori, Sam. But we believe that this is not what he – or you – should be focussing on right now. There are ways to get into Hell –"

"Which are myth – not fact," Sam said sharply. "We haven't found a ritual or spell that actually lets us do it."

Father Emilio inclined his head. "No, but we need to focus on getting the Demon tablet before anything else."

"And when the Fallen come marching across Colorado and surround us with their alliance of demons, Father? What good will it do then?"

"The Demon tablet contains vastly more information than the trials to close the gates," the Jesuit reminded him. "The weapons against the demons came from it as well. There may be many such weapons we can use to defend ourselves detailed on it if we get it before they get here."

"Operative word being 'may'," Sam pointed out. "I'm not going to let my brother go into a fight without me. That's not happening."

Father Emilio looked at him, gauging the younger man's determination. "Even if what he's doing leads to his death – and yours?"

Sam looked at him carefully for a moment. "We've gone in on much worse odds."

"And something has kept you alive," the priest said tersely. "That might not always be the case."

"If you know something, padre, then for fuck's sake, tell me, but don't try to scare me off with vague insinuations and no proof."

Father Emilio shook his head. "I don't have proof. I have a hunch, as they say, Sam," he said. "I think this is the wrong course of action."

"Take it up with Dean, then."

"He won't listen to me," Father Emilio said. "He is too worried about the people here."

Sam let a gusty exhale. "And he should be. That's what we do, Father."

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon**_

A billion stars sparkled faintly against the black sky, his breath freezing as it left his lungs. Dean stood on the keep steps, the jacket drawn close around him, looking at the endless expanse of the night above him.

He could live without anyone, he thought bleakly. Could walk away from his brother if he was sure that was the right thing to do. Not look back. He could walk away from Alex as well.

It would do more than hurt. It would change something deep down, something fundamental inside of him if he did. It would be giving up on something that had kept him going, one foot in front of the other, his whole life. Some barely-felt, barely-alive hope that things would be … could be … different. One day.

His greatest regrets were not dying in Iowa and not seeing Zeppelin playing live at the Forum in '77 – it'd been two years before he was born but he still regretted not seeing it – and he knew without a doubt in his mind that if he walked away now, this would be a regret that would overshadow everything he'd ever done in his life.

Was that the same thing as having no choice, he wondered?

This wasn't taking one for the team, leaving because no one could know what they did, what he did, he realised slowly. Everyone knew what he did and they still didn't know if the croats or Pestilence or Lucifer or whoever had been controlling them had known and deliberately chosen Lisa for their target, to get to him, but it didn't matter, did it, because he'd already painted a bullseye on Alex, just by being with her. Everyone in the keeps, everyone in Michigan, knew her, knew that she was with him. Leaving now wouldn't protect her. It would only make her more vulnerable.

He leaned back against the cold, concrete wall, tension and indecision knotting the muscles at the back of his neck, through his shoulders.

_Don't rationalise away the danger because you want it so much_, he told himself, blinking as the admission slid out, easy as breathing. Did he? Want it so much that he could talk himself through the risks? Or was it just that the whole damned world was at risk now and no one more so than the people under his protection?

He pushed off the wall and turned to the door, going into the hall and heading for the stairs. Debating it with himself was an exercise in pointlessness, he thought, taking the stairs three and four at a time. He'd stood in front of her and said nothing, and he had to get past that first.

* * *

The apartment was dark and cold when he opened the door. He looked down the hall at the bedroom door and turned into the living room, laying a new fire mostly by feel and lighting it, watching the tentative flames curl around the kindling and gradually start to grow.

His picks were in his other jacket, and he walked back to the hall, feeling through the pockets until he found the slim leather case and pulling it out. Behind the bedroom door he could only hear silence, and he dropped to one knee, working the wrench and pick through the simple lock with hands that were damp with nervous sweat.

The door swung open as the lock clicked, and he walked to the side of the bed by memory, reaching out and almost knocking the lamp over, grabbing it and switching it on in the same awkward movement.

Alex rolled over toward him, eyes narrowed against the brightness, her hand lifting to shade them as she scrambled back against the pillows, sitting up.

"It's me," he said, looking down at her, relief that she was still here and guilt at the sight of her swollen and reddened eyes warring uncomfortably. "I'm sorry."

She nodded slightly, leaning forward to wrap her arms around her knees.

He sat on the edge of the bed, uncertain of what to do next. "Thanks for the jacket," he said finally, not knowing where else to start. He looked around the room absently, his attention sharpening suddenly on the cases that stood by the door.

"You were leaving?"

"I didn't think you were coming back," she said, her voice flat and muffled.

He closed his eyes, his imagination effortlessly supplying what it'd looked like to her; the empathy, that deep streak in him, giving him a taste of what it'd felt like. Swallowing against the dryness in his throat, he looked at her.

"When you said – it got messed up," he told her disjointedly, feeling his way slowly through how it'd felt, how he'd felt, the words he needed to describe it to someone else. "What you said – what you told me. With what happened at Chitaqua. What happened with Lisa."

She didn't say anything, her forehead resting on her knees, face hidden.

"That's – I'm – that's not an excuse, Alex. It's just what – just what happened," he added, the flutter under his ribs getting stronger.

_Do you … now_, he wondered, waiting for her to move, to say something, to do something. He struggled to stay there against a surge of self-protectiveness urging him to get out, to leave before she could hurt him, to turn away and go and not look back, pretend he wasn't, he didn't.

He felt the tremor through the bed under him first, cutting through his conflicting feelings and thoughts as he looked at her and saw her shoulders shaking. He was across the bed, his arms going around her, before he'd realised he'd moved, tightening his hold as he felt tension in the rigidity of her muscles.

_ImsorryIdidntmeanitIdotooyouknowImsorryAlexImsorry sorryitwasntmeantwasntwhatIwantedtodotosaytofeelso rryAlexpleaseplease ... doyoudoyoustill_? He closed his eyes, ignoring the thoughts that were racing in tight circles in his head, hearing the stagger and hitch of her breathing, his cheek against her hair.

* * *

The light was off and his arms were still around her as they lay together in the darkness.

_I didn't love her and it was a duty I chose to take on_, he told her, _and it made it worse_. She nodded, understanding his pain, the depth of it, knowing that it would live in him until the day he died.

_I knew that I wasn't going to have a family_, she told him, _and I was terrified_. His lips brushed her forehead and he saw the fear, fear of having what she wanted, fear of it being taken away. He knew that fear.

_I don't know how to do this_, he told her, _can't say the things you need to hear_. Under the words, she heard the longing and understood that it was there, whether he said it or not, admitted it or not.

_Is it something you want_, she asked him, _do you want to walk away?_ And he shook his head, his throat closing up. _I want to be here_, he said tightly, pulling her closer, telling her the way he could, the way he knew how.

In the cold darkness of the room, in the warmth they made between them under the covers of the bed, they moved slowly, every caress drawn out and savoured, every taste, every touch, revealing more than words could, filled with passion and tenderness, filled with ache and pleasure, all of it dissolving grief and heartache and pain and anger. He didn't want to stop talking like this, his nerves frying as every touch and taste and smell and sound flickered through them, sheet lightning inside of him, the heat coiling deeper and tighter, a low, shuddering throb in time with his pulse. And when she welcomed him inside, and he remembered what they had already made, he forgot how to breathe, forgot to be afraid, forgot everything but what he knew, could feel, down where he lived and where he was just himself, just Dean, just a man who wanted this more than he could hope to tell her.

* * *

Alex stretched out as she listened to the sounds coming from the kitchen. She felt loose and heavy, her body warm and tired, her mind quiescent and peaceful. They hadn't left the apartment for two days and she knew it couldn't last. He was heading out in the morning for Colorado.

Rolling over, she rested her head against her forearm and let herself drift. Chuck and his visions. Death and his prediction. The creative and destructive forces walking the world.

A life, growing inside her.

She closed her eyes against the tingling shiver that slid down her spine. She was acutely aware of her fear. She had mourned for a long time in the hospital, uncaring of her injuries, of what had happened and what she'd done, only locked into what had seemed an unending spiral of grief that had dragged her so deep in its undertow she hadn't thought to come back up again.

Opening an eye and looking at the open doorway, she knew that he felt it as well, that fear. He'd lost a child as well. The promise of a child. She'd felt it in him. Neither of them could ignore the past, it lived too close to them, had too many memories that could not be forgotten or buried.

She wondered if that was why it was different with him, without thought. Just perfectly in the moment, in the feelings, in the sensation that coruscated through from one to the other, a building crescendo that never failed to fill her with a peace she couldn't have imagined with anyone else.

Footsteps and the clink of china drew her attention back to the room, to the present. Dean walked into the bedroom, jeans half-buttoned and loose around his hips, a large bowl, steam rising fragrantly from it, clutched in one hand, two bottles dangling precariously from the fingers of the other.

"French fries?" she asked, looking at the piles of thin, golden sticks that filled the bowl and were covered in streamers of red.

"Yeah," he said, setting the bowl between them on the bed and passing her a bottle of cold beer. "That's what I felt like."

She ducked her head to hide the bubbling laugh that rose, and reached out for one, dipping the end in the ketchup.

"They're good," she told him, taking another. He nodded contentedly. They were. Next time, he'd wear a shirt when he did them, though, looking down at the small red burns over his chest where the oil had spat at him. He took a handful from the bowl, licking his fingers as he watched her eat.

* * *

The susvee's low rumble echoed from the high concrete and stone walls, not loud, but penetrating. Sam sat in the front seat, Elias, Danielle and Maggie taking up the seat behind him. The caboose they pulled was loaded; supplies and weapons, including the spatter bombs Franklin had made specifically for the job.

"Take us a couple of days to get there, and we won't be staying long," he said to Alex on the keep steps.

She nodded, looking into his eyes. He stood on the step below her, and the change in perspective was odd, but nice, she thought.

"Michel sent the last data from GOES last night," she told him. "Another big front coming, it'll hit the northern Rockies tonight."

"We'll find somewhere to hole up," he reassured her, pulling her close. He couldn't let the kiss pull him too deep. Couldn't let it go too long.

She stepped back and he looked at her for a moment, committing every detail to memory. He turned away, walking down the steps and climbing up into the cab, feeling her watching him, an odd warmth filling him. Putting the vehicle into gear, he manoeuvred it around the bailey, checking the mirrors as it straightened out.

_She did. Still_. And that was all he needed to know.


	9. Chapter 9 Elemental Division

**Chapter 9 Elemental Division**

* * *

_**Chambre d'ombres, Pyrenees**_

The library had been built into the existing cavern, the stone smoothed and polished and shelving built along the straight walls to the high, naturally-domed ceiling. It was a dry cavern and the smell in it was overwhelming from old paper, furniture polish with a hint of lemon and the aromatic scent of burning pear wood in the wide, open hearth to one side.

Penemue glanced around the room. The hunters and scholars of the French order were, on the whole, hardened and cold-eyed. The Qaddiysh had been welcomed cordially enough, he thought, but with some reservation, particularly from the older members. He glanced across the room to Francesca d'Lengue. Thin and sharp-featured and in her early sixties, he guessed, although the dark chestnut hair cut in a smooth pageboy cut and alabaster-fine skin belied that estimate. He saw the years in her eyes. Green-grey and watchful and shadowed by too many memories.

Alain Pentecost was the other surviving senior legacy. Tall, narrow-framed and like Francesca, watchful and calculating, his silver hair was receding from a high forehead and long, narrow face.

The younger hunters, Luc Arente and Marc Barnaud, were perhaps more typical of their type. Luc was dark-haired, over six feet, a powerful frame, dark grey eyes under black brows, a sardonic twist to the full mouth. Marc, a similar height and build, dark blond hair cut short and hazel eyes in an open, square face, both men were completely straightforward, neither hostile nor friendly, but waiting to see what the Watchers would do first. They reminded him of the Winchesters.

"These are the texts we retrieved from the Vatican," Elena said, gesturing around the boxes and books and manuscripts piled haphazardly over the tables in the long room. "We have been sending our translations – and interpretations – to Kansas," she continued. "Jasper has raised some questions and we would like you to verify the information we've sent if you can?"

"Of course," Penemue said, glancing around at Baraquiel. "What are the problems?"

"The locations the Church has given for the first-born of Nintu, for one," Antoinette said, getting up from the end of the table and walking to them. Slender and fair, with a scattering of fine freckles over her face and neck, her hair gleamed titian under the warm overhead lights, her eyes a shadowed grey. "We have Usiku as being locked up in Africa, but Jasper and Katherine both believe that the first vampire was actually imprisoned somewhere in the United States."

"And Raat was supposedly buried in an ancient volcano, somewhere in the Pacific," Jean said truculently. The young man's face was drawn and pale, a result of the grief for a lost companion, Elena had told him, along with a prickly, difficult attitude. "But Jerome tells us that he too is incarcerated somewhere in the Americas."

Shamsiel answered them. "At the time, no people existed in those countries. All the first-born of the goddess Nintu were sealed into geologically stable sites in what is now Canada down to Argentina."

"So these are wrong?" Elena asked, seeing Jean's face spasm.

"Isabeau died for nothing?!" the young man exclaimed at the same time.

Penemue looked at him, his expression neutral. "Some of the details will not be correct, others will be. The task was not for nothing."

Jean turned away and walked stiffly from the room. Penemue noticed that none of his companions attempted to follow. Youth had little use for logic or reason in the face of powerful emotion, he thought.

"We need to find the references to the tablets, and to the accursed plane," he said to Elena. "The monster situation will stabilise if we can draw Ninhursag and Nintu back to their prison."

"Stabilise?" Francesca asked from the other side of the room, her voice cool. "Already the populations have doubled, and the human population is declining more rapidly than ever."

"The first-born still need humans to increase their numbers," Alain agreed. "It makes no sense that they would be increasing when what they need is reduced."

"Ninhursag has passed over the world twice now," Michel said from the broad, arched doorway. "Each time fertility and the imperative to reproduce have rocketed out of sight statistically, at least among the animal populations."

Baraquiel looked from him to Elena speculatively. "But you have not seen its effects in the human populations you know of?"

Elena ducked her head and Penemue noticed that Antoinette looked away at the same time. "We have seen a number of small populations in this area but they have been too afraid for us to communicate with them."

"But you are bearing a child, yes?" Shamsiel asked her directly.

She nodded, glancing at Antoinette. "We both are."

Luc found something else to do in the deeper stacks and Francois grinned at the Watchers. "It was a chaotic couple of weeks," he said with a Gallic shrug.

"I can imagine," Baraquiel said dryly. "The Americans too will have seen her effects. And any other groups of survivors, no matter how small."

"It doesn't explain why the children of Nintu are increasing now," Alain said shortly. "These children will not be born for months, and it will be years before they can reproduce themselves, even if every woman carried the child to term."

"No," Shamsiel agreed. "There is something that we do not know."

Francesca smiled. "There are vast galaxies of things we do not know."

"Can your table show us concentrations of people?" Penemue asked Michel curiously, gesturing behind him to the room they'd entered through.

The programmer shook his head. "I cannot differentiate between the different carbon-based animated life-forms, not even between a large school of fish and a large herd of deer except by environmental abstraction," he said, shaking his head. "The only truly unique thing that differentiates humanity from anything else is the soul, and I have no possible parameters for measuring that."

Peter walked into the library, holding a sheaf of weather charts in one hand and looking around at the people sitting there. "We leave here the day after tomorrow," he told the Qaddiysh. "We have a good chance of getting past the Azores before the Siberian high moves further west."

* * *

_**US 40 W, Kansas**_

Inside the cab of the rugged vehicle, the heater was blasting at them and the noise of the engine and the clanking of the tracks was muted – _somewhat muted_, Sam amended to himself as Dean skirted a hump by the side of the invisible road that might've been a car once, or something else entirely, and the clatter increased with the change of direction.

He turned around to look at Elias. "What've we got in the back?"

"Franklin's specials." The auburn-haired hunter grinned at him. "Holy oil, iron caltrops and enough C4 to leave a nice crater wherever they go off."

"They're actually masterpieces." Maggie said indignantly "Tiny but pack a punch those angels are not going to forget. Plus the usual," she added, rolling her eyes slightly. "Stingers, a couple of Stigs, an assortment of mines – all remote detonate – and ammo for everything."

"What Chuck wrote down narrowed the location down to the northern end of the town," Dean said over the noise. "We'll go in on foot first, take a very cautious look around and figure out how best to take them out."

"And if they see us coming?" Sam asked.

"Then we're in big trouble," Elias said with a snort from the back

Dean shrugged, waving vaguely at the windshield and the road beyond. Nothing moved in the expanse of white, the snow humped and driven into high, long curves and dunes.

"Would you expect an attack in this?"

Sam looked around. He had no idea how his brother was finding the road, the drifts had levelled parts of the land and created hills were there were none in others. In any other kind of vehicle, it would've been impossible to travel through the heavy snow and the frozen and refrozen ice fields. The susvees were designed for it, though, designed for the ice sheets of Antarctica and the North Pole, designed to be able to find their way across any surface and through most conditions.

He thought of the description Chuck had written about the place. A long, low ranch house on a well-appointed property at the base of a range just north of the town. Three men and a woman, not human, but fallen. Four nephilim – possibly, from the descriptions, and three others. The prophet hadn't detailed what they were, said he hadn't seen them do anything but watch the perimeter and study books in the flashes of his vision. _Cambion_, Sam wondered uneasily? Cas had said that the Grigori had made a deal with them, some of them at any rate. Half-human, half-demon, and he remembered Jasper's theory of how they were made. And their powers.

Michel had sent another transmission through late in the night. The Qaddiysh were at the French chapter, reviewing the texts from the Vatican vaults. They might be able to clarify details that none of the legacies or scholars had understood. _They'd been around long enough_, he thought sourly. They had to know something about the Word tablets, about the children of Nintu and why they were spreading out so fast and how they were finding populations of survivors that had eluded the hunters.

Without the tablet, they were relying on Chuck's visions of the future. Father Emilio had been right about that. They needed the tablet to be able to really take the fight to the demonspawn. But finding it … on this plane or the other … that would be a real trick.

Dean glanced in the rear-view mirror at the three sitting behind him. "Get some sleep if you can," he told them, his gaze flicking sideways to his brother. "The weather data we got this morning means we'll have to find someplace to pull off tonight, and keep going in the morning."

Maggie sighed and stretched as little, turning her head to the back of the seat and closing her eyes. Beside her, Danielle smiled slightly as she heard the older woman's breathing switch almost instantly into the steady, shallow pattern of sleep. How long would it take her to be able to do that, she wondered? Her stomach was fluttering at the thought of what they were heading into, her nerves filled with a low-grade hum since they'd left the keep. She was with the best hunters left in the post-Apocalypse world, she realised, but it wasn't enough to keep her imagination from messing with her. Three years ago, her biggest worry had been that she was failing her major.

Elias nodded and leaned against the window, letting his eyes drop. In front of him, Sam stretched out his legs and closed his eyes, aware of how impossible it was for him to just go to sleep on this job. He would give his brother some peace of mind by pretending though.

The boxy vehicle crawled along the road, compressing the snow under its weight, the caterpillar tracks gripping through the powder and the ice with equal ease. Dean watched ahead, the shape of the banks, the faint shadows as the dim light moved from one side of the overcast sky to the other, showing him where the road ran under the blanket of snow. Driving was as natural as breathing and his hands lay light on the wheel and controls as he calculated every surface almost automatically.

* * *

It was almost dusk when the snow thickened, driving horizontally from the fields to the north of them, the staccato rattle of the granules almost loud enough to drown out the machine. Shadows lay purple across the banks and drifts and he watched through the wipers for anything that would provide some shelter and prevent them from ending up buried for the night.

He went past the long steel shed before seeing it, the snow piled high and in a smooth, curved drift over the top, it looked like just another hill until he glanced back and saw the dark opening in the mirrors. Slowing down, he shifted the gears and backed up, looking down at the bank between the raised surface of the road and the lower ground in front of the shed and easing them down, the tracks slipping a little on the slope but clinging on enough to get them safely to the bottom.

"Where are we?" Sam blinked, thrown around as the susvee crawled across a buried road divider and up another small bank.

"'Crossed into Colorado about ten miles back," Dean said, eyes narrowed as he gauged the power he needed for the bank. "There is, was, a small town somewhere here, but this seems to be all that's left."

The vehicle humped its way over what might've been another small fence and settled down as they approached the dark opening.

"Blizzard's here?"

"On its way," Dean said, flicking on the full complement of lights the susvee had to offer, the darkness of the interior of the shed immediately dispelled as the double rows of headlights and spotlights, pointing to the front, sides and rear, lit it up.

"Looks alright," Sam remarked, raising his voice over the clanking as the tracks went from the snow to the light ice covering inside the shed. Dean nodded to the rifle on the seat between them, slowing down as they approached the far wall.

"No need to take chances," he said, taking the vehicle out of gear but leaving the engine running and the lights on. He tapped the horn and Elias, Maggie and Danielle jerked to wakefulness. "Full check and we'll put down salt and traps at the front," he ordered.

The hunters picked up their ordnance and opened the doors, jumping down and shivering as they went from the warm, snug cab to the minus temperature of the building. The shed was almost empty and Elias and Maggie took the wall where shelving and the remains of a couple of shipping containers could have hidden something as Sam and Danielle checked the rest.

Dean opened the driver's door and jumped down, feeling his boots slip on the thin ice that coated the ground. He walked around to the caboose and opened the rear doors, dragging out the arctic tents and groundsheets. Out of the wind it would be warmer than being either in the vehicle or outside, and they'd be safe enough to light a fire if they could find anything to burn.

* * *

Laying down the protection, checking the perimeter, setting everything up, he watched the hunters with him doing their jobs efficiently and quickly. It was standard procedure now, didn't need to be thought about or discussed, everyone knew what they had to do, but the memories of the past were still close enough to feel a moment's amazement at how smoothly they all worked together, and older memories butted in. Sam and him, stopping at a motel, dragging the gear in, salting the windows, cleaning their guns, the small rooms frequently filled with the battling smells of fast food and gun solvent. Tossing a coin for first use of the shower. Never sleeping all the way through because there were too many unknown sounds in the unfamiliar neighbourhoods and cities and towns.

He looked down at the battered coffee pot he'd just put over the flames and sighed. How different would their lives have been if they'd had a fraction of the resources they had now? Would it have changed anything, to have friends, and backup? Or would Hell've just targeted them as Jim and Caleb and his father had been targeted?

Pushing the unanswerable questions aside, he looked up as Elias and Danielle settled themselves on one side of the fire, and Maggie and Sam took the other. "First shift, you two," he said to Elias and Danielle. "Maggie, you're off tonight, Sam and me'll do graveyard."

They nodded without argument, and he watched Maggie dig through the bags of dried and preserved food they'd brought, throwing a selection into an equally battered pot and adding water. There were times he'd've killed for a burger, the long day's driving crashing down on him as he leaned back against the bags of gear behind him, but he'd probably've died of heart disease on that diet, he acknowledged with a faint smile, eyes closing.

* * *

"What'd he say about the lines changing?" Dean asked his brother softly.

They sat a foot or two apart, their backs to the fire, watching the open entrance with rifles loosely held over their knees.

"He said that the lines had already been altered and something about my blood having an effect on the closing of the gates," Sam murmured, lifting a shoulder slightly. "He seemed to think that it might change things further."

Dean turned to look at him. "Do you think it would?"

"I don't know," Sam said, shaking his head. "Aside from being more Hell-related, what difference could it make?"

"And he and Father McConnaughey both think that?" Dean pressed, a frown drawing his brows together as he tried to think of what the priests been attempting to manoeuvre his brother into.

"I'm not sure, it was just Emilio there."

"They playing their own game here?" Dean rubbed a hand over his jaw. Both men had had good arguments for searching for the tablet first. It would limit the support the Grigori could get if Hell was shut down before they came into Kansas. The only problem was none of them had any idea where the fucking tablet was.

"I don't think so," Sam said slowly. "I didn't get that impression."

"They know more than what they've told us?"

"That's possible," Sam admitted. "He was talking about Chuck's vision as if there was more to it than we'd seen."

"We'll go over it again when we get back," Dean decided. "And maybe check out the books the good Fathers have been reading – or get one of the others to do it."

Sam nodded. "Background information might explain it."

"Yeah."

The silence between them grew slowly. It was a normal and comfortable silence, a familiar one. Dean felt himself relaxing incrementally, feeling old habits, old reassurances returning very gradually as Sam seemed to be getting back to himself.

"Rufus said Alex was pregnant," Sam said a few minutes later. Dean sighed inwardly as he heard the very faint edge of rebuke in his brother's voice.

"Yeah, I was going to tell you," he said apologetically. "Just ended up being rushed when we got out."

"You alright with that?" Sam asked curiously.

Dean hadn't told him much about what'd happened with Lisa. He knew from Cas and Chuck that she'd been pregnant when the croats had infected her. Knew that his brother'd had to shoot her in front of Ben. Knew that it'd screwed him over for more than a year. Dean hadn't filled in the huge gaps between those few facts, but he could guess at the how and the why of that reticence.

"Yeah," Dean said slowly now. "I think so."

Sam's mouth lifted wryly on one side as he turned to look at him. "You think so?"

"I'm not going to just leave her to handle it alone," Dean told him, flicking a glance his way.

Sam nodded, turning to look back at the featureless black of the shed doorway.

"Ellen said you gave her hell for not looking out for her while you were down in Oklahoma," he said neutrally. "But you know, it wasn't that easy to figure out, Dean."

"Because I shack up with chicks all the time?" Dean asked sarcastically.

"Because none of us knew what you were thinking."

For a moment, Dean didn't respond and Sam wondered if he'd gone too far. He heard his brother's deep exhale, not daring to look around at him.

"Yeah, maybe because I wasn't looking at it real hard," Dean said softly.

Sam did look around then, his brow creasing up in surprise at the admission.

"And are you? Now?"

Dean shifted uncomfortably, staring out at the blackness. He didn't talk about this shit often enough for it to be even remotely easy. The vulnerability, showing someone that vulnerability, always set off alarm bells, even with Sam. Sometimes, especially with Sam. And he couldn't explain what he felt anyway. Not in words.

"It's … uh … yeah," he said tersely. "I'm looking at it."

"Dude … you falling in love?"

He turned to look sourly at his brother. "I'm going to have a look outside."

Sam snorted softly as his brother got up and walked to the doorway.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

The building was almost silent, Father McConnaughey thought. The low hum of the generators that powered everything, a subliminal sound easily tuned out. The rustle of paper and the occasional grunt from the readers, discovering something new or revising something previously thought. The very soft crackle of the wood burning in the hearth. He looked at the watch on his wrist and smiled derisively at himself. In the wee hours of the morning, he shouldn't be so surprised.

This place had been a revelation to him. The town as well. He'd seen the signs and had tried to convince his parish of them, tried to fight past the way the people had thought he was talking in metaphors and illuminations, not realising that the signs and seals were as real as their mortgages, more real for they presaged a time where financial consideration would be rendered meaningless.

He'd failed. The long-recognised admission brought a soft sigh. He'd been forced to run from his little town, from the people who had been under his guidance, under his protection to save his skin when the infected had poured through. He would be doing penance for that act for a long time.

People were resilient, and he'd found a few here and there, the small groups joining together under more decisive leaders. None of them had really known what to do, in a world that seemed more nightmare than reality, a world of demons and darkness, of monsters and the inescapable fact that without a place to shelter, without food, they were all going to die.

He'd prayed for help in the wilderness and help had come. They'd been led, like those of old, out of the wild and back to civilisation and the messenger had told him to watch for the men who would change the world yet again, who would be strong enough, and sure enough, to close the gates. When he'd come here and seen Father Emilio, he'd known it was meant. The Jesuit had seen it in him, had seen the messenger's touch on him and had known as well.

Father Emilio had convinced him that the men the messenger had spoken of were here. He agreed with the priest's assessment. The accounts they'd been able to glean from the scholars here, from occasional slips from the hunters who protected the place, confirmed that it had been the older Winchester who'd faced the devil and destroyed him, who had set into motion the next set of lines. Sam had told Emilio that he'd been Lucifer's vessel, and a little of why that had been so and how he'd escaped.

He'd spent the first forty years of his calling working in the libraries of the Church in Rome. Had met Father Emilio there twenty years ago. Had known of what was coming, although it'd been an academic knowledge. He'd not thought that he would see it within his lifetime. Retiring to his home town, he'd seen instead people who found it harder and harder to find their spirituality. To find meaning in the insanely-paced world in which they lived. People who'd become inured to the savagery in the cities and the indifference of their governments and the callous greed of the corporations that paid their salaries. And passion … for life, for the causes of good, for others … passion had been so far diminished in those people he'd wondered privately how they got up every morning.

He scratched at his beard and looked back down at the text in front of him. What Chuck had seen and had written down was a tiny fragment of what had been set in motion with the death of the Fallen One, he knew now. The prophet's visions were invariably tied to the Winchesters and Father Emilio had told him that Dean stood astride a multiple node in the lines, a convergence of possibilities that his actions alone could dictate. The Jesuit wasn't sure why that was, although he believed it had been deliberately arranged so. The order's history of the Winchesters, and the Campbells who formed the other side of the equation, were detailed but mainly speculative. No one, not the Jesuit, not the sole remaining legacy of the order, not the intelligent and shrewd scholars who were labouring to understand the machinations that were becoming more and more apparent, understood exactly how and why the two bloodlines of the Qaddiysh had been required and manipulated to create two brothers with such an impact on the fate of the world.

Father Emilio was convinced that the manipulation had been solely arranged to enable to release of Lucifer, to bring about a perversion of the Paradise foretold. Father McConnaughey was not so sure of that. The demon's access to the family had not been preordained, at least not according to the interviews the order had conducted after the first meeting. And although the blood given to the infant had changed and allowed Sam Winchester access to the power that could break the final seal of the Cage, the factors that had changed their lives, had driven John Winchester into a life of revenge and training his sons to be the warriors they became, that could not have been foreseen, even along the lines. And it evidently had not – Dean Winchester had become the single weapon that had been able to destroy Lucifer.

More than a single conspiracy, he'd suggested to the Jesuit. More than Heaven meddling with destiny and adjusting the consequences of their machinations. Father Emilio had considered that carefully. It was possible, he'd admitted.

In any case, the old priest thought now, there was another branching. With the unsealing of the Word, and the repercussions that had brought, they were no longer facing a single battle.

"Jasper!" Katherine's voice cut through his thoughts and pulled his attention back to the library and those in it. "The Qaddiysh have revised this section."

The old man looked over his glasses across the table to her. "On the possible locations of the first monsters? Yes," he said. "I saw that."

She shook her head. "No, that part I expected," she said. "This is the last section on the text of the prophet."

Jasper frowned and got up, walking around the table to lean over her shoulder and read the pages in front of her.

"The prophet spoke of days of death … and the brightest angel bled out of the world …," he mumbled, stopping and looking at her. "This is the prophecy for Lucifer's death."

"Yes, keep reading," she instructed him tersely.

"And … God would test them. Test them unto death and purify them," he read slowly, brows drawing together as he straightened up, replaying the words in his head.

Father McConnaughey watched him. "It refers to the tablet?"

Jasper looked around to him. "To the Word, I think." He looked down at Katherine. "Is there any more?"

"Not so far, they're still working on the next section," she told him. "Test them unto death – that doesn't sound reassuring."

"It's a fragment, Katie," Jasper said distractedly. "We need a lot more."

Father McConnaughey closed the book he'd been reading and pushed it aside, getting up from the table. He needed to let Emilio know, he thought. They'd believed that either one of the Winchesters could close the gates but that Sam might be the one. The demon blood tied him closer to Hell than his brother. And Chuck's visions had included several clues as to why that might be important.

* * *

_**One week later. Hendaye, France**_

Of all the bodies of water in the world, the bay he looked out across had one of the worst reputations, Peter thought morosely. Biscay was a large semi-circular bay on the western coast of France. The continental shelf was shallow a hundred miles out from the coast, then plunged into an oceanic trench, and the difference in the underwater heights created turbulence in the seas even when the prevailing on-shore winds were not blowing a gale, which was rare enough.

He looked along the deck of the steel yacht tied to the dock next to him. Forty-five feet long, and cutter-rigged, she had been the most suitable ocean-going vessel they could find. The single mast and two headsails were the most powerful yet simple configuration for a small crew to handle, no matter what the weather.

The sailmaker's yards in the complex had been fortuitously built of steel and stone and brick and the sailmaker had, before his or her untimely death, been meticulous about storing the work, wrapped in plastic and packed into steel and plastic chests. Just as well or their journey would've been over before they'd started, with every sail the yacht had had gone, piles of eyelets and toggles lying on the decks the only clue they'd ever been there.

They'd been here two days, and the electronics and electrics had been replaced, along with the rubber seals for the engine and all the missing gear that had been edible to Baal's plague. The big diesel tanks were full. The water tanks were full. They'd packed their food stores and had replaced the full complement of sails plus spares, lines, wire and tools. They could sail tonight, the tide would turn at two.

Over three thousand miles, taking the lower route from the Azores to Rhode Island. The higher northern route was quicker, but the winter gales and icebergs were a concern in the higher latitudes. The trade winds were well-established and they would make good time with their steady help, laying off south to Bermuda and picking up the Gulf Stream as they got closer to the east coast of the American continent.

"Is everything stowed?" he asked Elena as she came out through the narrow companionway hatch and looked around.

"Yes, we're ready."

"Good, this is conceivably the worst possible place to leave from, but the overland to a better port would've taken longer."

She smiled at him. "It will be you and I for most of this trip," she said, glancing down the companionway to the cabin below. "The Qaddiysh have not had so much experience with the sea."

He shrugged. "That will keep the chain of command short."

Another thought occurred to him. "When are you due, Elena?"

She looked at him in surprise. "Early August, I think."

"You will be alright?" he asked awkwardly, not sure of what he wanted to know. "There are no complications?"

The corners of her mouth tucked in as he looked away uncomfortably. "Yes, I am fine. No morning sickness."

Turning away, Peter nodded and she saw the relief in his face. "Good. Don't need any added worry."

She watched him absently as he walked along the dock to check the lines, reviewing her memories of the previous time she'd been pregnant. There had been no discomfort, no sickness … not even the tiredness after the first few weeks. A stray memory intruded and she ducked her head, the skin of her neck colouring slightly as she remembered one side effect of the middle part of the pregnancy. That wouldn't happen again, she hoped.

* * *

_**Taos, New Mexico**_

The vehicle came to a stop and Dean turned the engine off, silence dropping over them like a lead shroud. To either side of the narrow ravine, the rocky walls towered against the thick, low cloud, snow clinging to the grey stone, more deeply mantled over the trees that crowded at the narrowest point, swept into a smooth carpet as the walls drew away and a small stream trickled sluggishly along the base of the western side.

"How far are we?" Sam asked, opening his door and dropping down to the ground.

"Four miles from the best prospect," Dean told him, landing on the other side, the rifle slung over one shoulder, Ruby's knife sheathed at the back on his right hip and the automatic tucked into a jacket pocket along with two mags. He looked at Elias and Maggie and gestured to the sharp wall behind them. "That ridge runs behind the property; don't get closer than a half mile. We just want to see where everything is."

The hunters nodded and turned up the ravine, heading for the trees.

"What about us?"

"We'll look from the other side of the access road," Dean said, shutting the door and pushing the keys into his jeans pocket. "Be about a mile from the house but that's as close as I wanna get this time out."

Sam nodded, settling the rifle over his shoulder as he waded through the brushed powder across the narrow road and began the climb up through the broken, crumbling rock.

Everything was still, the thin woods drab in the grey light, no signs of the wildlife that should've been there, Dean noticed uneasily. It was a good indicator that they had the right place, the local animals moving away from an occupied building. He wasn't sure that it was the right explanation, though. The back of his neck had been prickling all day as they'd looked along the mountain ridge in their first very long-distance look, and it was getting stronger as he got closer. The thick, white-splotched camouflage suits were not quite ghillies, but had been sewn with extra pieces of cloth along shoulders and arms and legs, helping to break up their outlines against the patchy background of snow and rock and timber. The cold was penetrating through their layers despite the warmth of the suits and the effort of the climb.

He nodded to Sam as they crested the bank that ran along the other side of the gravelled access road, dropping to their knees and inching up under the cover of the bare and spindly undergrowth, the house and outbuildings now clearly visible through the leafless trees that lined the long drive. They were almost a thousand yards away, and he was confident that they were invisible. Easing the rifle in front of him, he put his eye against the scope, adjusting the focus as the buildings leapt into a much closer view.

It was a big compound. Several large buildings took up the northern side, barns or workshops. The house, long and low, stretched out across the widening valley floor and faced south along its long axis, catching the winter sun on the stone-paved porch that ran from end to end. Lot of windows, he thought, moving the barrel around incrementally. Lot of doors too. A big pile of stacked logs lined nearly a third of the house wall under the cover of the porch roof, and to one side of the house, an untidy heap of logs had been left out in the weather, splitting block in front of it with an axe buried in the top. His attention sharpened as a woman came out of a door along the porch and walked slowly along, lighting a cigarette and looking around.

She was tall, he realised, measuring her height by eye against the height of the door behind her. The thick, high-necked sweater fell to her hips, jeans outlining long, slender legs. Pale blonde hair had been drawn into a smooth braid at the back of her head. Civilian, he wondered or one of them? She turned around, a streamer of smoke escaping her lips and he saw her face. Oval. High cheekbones. Large pale eyes. Beautiful. One of them, he decided, unable to pinpoint the reason for the certainty he felt, but sure of it anyway.

Behind her, a man came out, also tall and blond, broad-shoulders half-disguised under the elegantly-cut silk suit, his breath fogging white in the cold and mimicking the cigarette smoke as he spoke to her.

Dean recognised the chiselled features from the photographs the order had in their file on the Thule Society. Dietrich, the name came back to him as he glimpsed the chill, blue-eyed stare through the scope. Very much one of the bad guys.

The man leaned close to the woman and he registered the relationship between them automatically, filing away the attraction and simultaneous distaste that seemed mutual. Something in their body language, some juxtaposition in the arrogance of their positions and the frigidity of the interaction, told him that cruelty was a trait of both, careless and natural. He wouldn't worry about either going down, he thought.

He was aware of the woods around them, aware of his brother lying four feet to his right, Sam's breathing barely audible, aware of the faint breeze that had begun to blow down from the peaks, aware of the dead silence that surrounded them, not even a trace of the conversation he was watching carrying on the almost-still air and over the snow to them.

He didn't have any warning at all.

The stock of the shotgun hit precisely on the nerve centre behind the ear and Dean slumped to the ground, the rifle falling from his hands. Sam was unconscious before he registered the blow to his brother, his gun lying on the thin covering of sodden leaf fall and crystallised snow in front of him.

"Get them down to the house," Draxler said quietly, looking down at the men. "Bring their weapons." He looked around the ridge. "There will be a vehicle, somewhere close by," he said to the boy and girl standing behind him. "Find it and bring it in."

They nodded and reached for each other's hands, disappearing with a faint pop as the air rushed to fill the space they'd been.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Mitch came into the library, his face white and pinched as he looked at Jerome. "Chuck's having another vision, I think."

Father Emilio looked at him. "Is he in his office?"

Mitch nodded. The priest looked at the people seated around the table, brow cocked. "One person rather than all, yes?"

"Merrin left a draught, to help him with the pain," Jerome said, gesturing at the hall. "It's in the kitchen."

Mitch nodded again. "I know where it is." He turned and ran down the hall, his footsteps thumping over the carpeted hardwood floor.

"Jerome, you had better call Bobby and Ellen," Jasper said, watching Father Emilio follow the young man out.

"He will sleep and in the morning, he will write it all down," Jerome said heavily. "No need for everyone to lose another night's sleep for no reason."

"We're not focussing on the correct thing anyway," Davis said from his chair by the fire. "It's becoming more apparent that we must retrieve the tablet, and we have no means of even discovering where it might be."

"Chuck might give us more clues this time," Father McConnaughey countered mildly.

"If the tablet has been taken to Hell, there is lore on how to break through to that plane," Katherine added, looking at Davis questioningly. "What changed, Davis?"

"Even if the hunters can stop or slow down the Grigori in New Mexico," Davis said slowly, looking from her to Jerome. "Even if the Qaddiysh can put Ninhursag and Nintu back into their prison, there are people out there, who are being possessed – according to Chuck's vision – and turned into monsters. And the tablet is the only thing that's going to give us a way to stop that from happening."

"Agreed," Jerome said impatiently. "And if we can find a definitive answer to discovering the location of the tablet, we may be able to do something about getting it, but until then …?"

"We've been looking in the wrong places." Davis gestured around the room. "We're not looking for lore but for ritual – for a spell of divination."

"You think that will work?" Katherine stared at him.

Davis looked over at Jerome. "It's what you learned, isn't it? In becoming an initiate? The spells to change things, to alter reality … to find things?"

For a moment, Jerome didn't answer him, looking at the flames cavorting over the burning logs in the hearth. Then he nodded.

"He's right." He pushed himself away from the table and turned his chair, rolling down the ramp to the elevator. "Jasper, can you wake Marla and Oliver? We'll need them."

* * *

Father Emilio sat in the chair beside the long sofa, his hands clasped around Chuck's as the convulsions eased and the writer's eyes rolled back in their sockets. "Mitch, the draught, before he loses consciousness completely."

The programmer poured out the measure and handed it to the priest, and he tipped a little between Chuck's lips, relieved as he swallowed automatically, letting a trickle tip into the prophet's mouth until the cup was empty.

"How long does he usually sleep at this stage?"

Mitch shook his head. "He slept for nine hours, the last time," he said uncertainly.

"I will stay with him if you want to rest, or continue your work," he added, glancing at the mounds of paper surrounding the long desk that served as the programmer's workstation.

Mitch nodded, moving back to the desk. "I'm uploading and collating," he muttered, pulling out the chair. "Once it's running, it'll take all night and I can leave it."

The priest nodded and turned back to look at Chuck's face. Colour was returning to the pale skin and the rapid eye movement beneath the closed lids told him that the vision was playing out to the prophet.

_See what we need to see, Chuck_, he said to himself. _We must close Hell before the demons can make any more deals. Before the rest of the Grigori can get here._

The messenger who'd answered Sean's prayers had been plain. The gates had to be closed now – before the current demon king could do anything and while the archdemons were bound and helpless. If they got free, for any reason, the chances of locking the accursed plane would be lost.

* * *

Jerome pulled his glasses from his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. It'd been years since he'd looked at most of the incantation and ritual magic books the library held. Years since he'd needed any but the most simple for the research he'd been doing. Along the sides of the table, Marla and Oliver, Father McConnaughey, Katherine, Felix, Jasper and Davis were silently bent over their books, skimming through ancient Greek and Latin, through Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform, through Hebrew and the pictograms of Egypt's earliest writings. Aside from the rustle of the paper, or the clink of the clay tablets on the polished timber table, the room was hushed.

Everything he could remember needed a key, he thought, pulling out the small square of antistatic cloth and polishing the lenses. Something associated with the object sought, or the material it was made of, or of it somehow. He couldn't remember ever seeing a divination spell that didn't require one.

As if he'd heard his thoughts, Felix looked up suddenly. "What about a symbol?"

"For the key?"

The old man nodded. "The Word was supposedly written by the Scribe, wasn't it?"

Jerome's eyes narrowed as he put his glasses back on, catching a glimmer of the language professor's idea.

"Mattatron … or Metatron," Jasper said slowly, nodding as he looked from Felix to Jerome. "There should be a sigil for him – his mark, every angel has their own. It would be unique to what he worked on."

"Marla, could you bring the angelology documents from level three, please," Jerome asked and the young woman pushed back her chair and hurried from the room.

"Would he sign the Word with his own sigil?" Katherine asked, her brow creasing.

"It would be proof of the authenticity of the tablet, for the rest of Heaven," Jasper said, looking at her. "Proof that it was actually God's Word."

"What else could it be on?" Davis looked at him.

"It might be on all of the tablets," Jerome said, considering the possibilities. "Could be on anything that God deemed suitable to give to mankind."

"The Ten Commandments?" Father McConnaughey looked up from his book. "The Ark of the Covenant?"

"Possibly," Jerome said, a slight smile crinkling his eyes.

"So we could be looking at dozens of locations?" Katherine asked him.

"Probably not dozens, I should –"

"We will have narrowed the search from the entire globe to a few locations," Jasper said sharply, looking at Katherine and Davis. "That is more progress than we've made to date."

She looked at him coolly. "No need to get your panties in a twist, Jasper."

"What do we need for a spell if we have the symbol to key it with?" Davis interrupted the silent feud between the professors.

"We have everything that's mentioned in most of these spells in the apothecary," Oliver said, gesturing at the books covering the table. "The key is always the most vital ingredient."

Jerome nodded. "Oliver, we'll use the map spell, get the candles and the equipment, we can use the situation table to start with."

"This might not work," Jerome continued, turning to Jasper. "If the scribe did not sign the tablets, we may find nothing."

"Better than sitting here doing nothing, isn't it?" Jasper returned caustically, flicking a glance at Katherine. "As much as I hate to admit to an agreement with him, Davis is right. There are people we need, people humanity needs, who are going to die if we don't move faster."

* * *

_**45º15'52.93 N, 22º29'46.30 W, Atlantic Ocean**_

Elena stared up at the flapping shreds of canvas that were still attached to the slides on the mast. She turned abruptly and sidled down the side deck, both hands keeping a firm grasp of the grab-rails and rigging as she went as the yacht rolled and pitched through the confused seas under her.

"We'll need to get the damaged slides out first," she told Peter as she slithered over the cockpit coaming and crouched behind the dog-house. She wiped the salt spray from her face as she looked up at him. He nodded.

"Penemue," he called down the companionway. "We'll need you and Baraquiel on deck in a moment."

There was a grunting assent from below decks and Elena hid a small smile. The Qaddiysh had helped as much as they could during the height of the storm, but all three had retired to the relative stability of lying flat on the bunks when it was plain that their presence was more of a hindrance than a help. Shamsiel still had a greenish tinge under the dark skin of his face, moaning softly from time to time as the boat dropped from a peak into a trough.

She lowered the door into its slot in the bulkhead, climbing carefully over the sill and raising it behind her as she backed down the steep, narrow steps into the main cabin. Neither Penemue nor Baraquiel had actually succumbed to the mal de mer that had overtaken their brother, but both were bruised from being thrown around in the tight confines of the cabin during the storm and both looked tired.

Moving slowly up the passage to the forward cabin, she spared a grin for both of them. "The wind is backing finally and we will be able to get out of these seas soon. The mainsail is gone, but we have a spare, I'll just need some help to get up the mast."

Penemue nodded, getting to his feet and climbing the steps to the cockpit, Baraquiel following more slowly, both men holding onto the available hand-holds along the narrow passage, having learned the lesson of not keeping a hand for the ship and one for themselves the hard way.

Elena lifted the mattress and the slatted board that lay under it, her fingers finding the bosun's chair unerringly by feel in the dim light and close quarters. She pulled it out and checked the line, recoiling it as she picked up the canvas seat and tucked it under her arm. Hurrying back along the passage she picked up the small, light tool belt she'd need, and buckled it around her waist.

The mast was sixty-five feet from the deck and swaying and rolling like a pendulum as the hull canted and dipped over the short, high seas. Looking up at the top, Baraquiel swallowed quickly against the sudden vertigo the motion brought and dropped his gaze to the deck that was, at least, only moving up and down.

"You're going up there?" Penemue asked disbelievingly, his eyes fixed to the top of the mast, whipping back and forth, circling and figure-eighting in a highly unpredictable fashion.

"You're going to pull me up," Elena confirmed, stepping over the coaming and glancing back over her shoulder. "Harnesses on," she ordered them shortly. "It would be hard to retrieve you if you go over the side."

Peter hid a grin as he watched the _Irin_ drag their harnesses out, clipping lines to the slim metal track that was welded to the coach-house. The job needed finesse to remove the jammed slides, but only muscle to get Elena to where she could work.

At the height of the storm that had kept them in Biscay's seething seas, the wind had gusted heavily, ripping the luff of the sail down along the edge closest to the mast, and most of it had gone into the sea, holding the boat against the waves. They'd cut it free and let it go, but the weight of the water in the cloth had been enormous, all the pressure exerted against the few slides that had remained both in the mast track and attached to the sail. The spare main had its own slides. Elena would know immediately if the slotted track had been damaged.

Under the tiny trysail now, they were keeping head to wind safely enough, waiting for the seas to calm. A day or two of a following wind would see them into the Atlantic proper, away from the bulging coastline of Spain and the strong currents and gales that were a feature of Biscay. Another couple of days and they would pass north of the Azores and then it would be fast sailing to the American coast. _If all went well_, he amended to himself. They could take the time to dry out the boat and its contents, and get into a routine. The boat carried a sextant and a good chronometer and a full set of charts of the north Atlantic. Navigation wouldn't be a problem.

He looked up, seeing Elena retrieve the main halyard block and tie the chair to it, hauling up the line until the chair hung a little below waist height above the deck. She climbed into it and wrapped the tail end around the winch on the mast, handing it to Penemue and, with many gestures, explaining the procedure. The _Irin_ nodded, passing the end of the rope to his brother and taking a hold close to the winch. Elena checked once more that they all understand the signals and nodded, pushing off the wildly swinging mast as the two men hauled her up. She was at the top in moments, legs tightly wrapped around the slimmest section, ignoring the movement of boat and mast as she studied the track and the Irin slowly lowered her, stopping when she called out, resuming at the sharp downward drop of her arm.

A shakedown sail, they'd used to call it, Peter remembered. The boat and her crew had passed the test satisfactorily.

* * *

_**Taos, New Mexico**_

A cold hard floor under the side of his face.

A grunt of pain behind him.

The click-click of high-heels somewhere in the room.

Dean opened his eyes slightly, his view restricted to floor level. His head was throbbing in time with his pulse, the pain centred behind his ear, nausea from the head blow turning his stomach over slowly. In his direct eyeline, he could see Sam, still unconscious and lying on his side, his arms as tightly trussed behind him as he could feel his own were.

He closed his eyes, replaying the last memories he had. _The thin, silent woods. The two talking on the porch. A shift in the air. Nothing_.

He couldn't think of anything that could sneak up on him and Sam without even the slightest of warning. His neck had been prickling all day, he remembered. He couldn't remember if that had gotten stronger before they were hit.

"How did you find us?"

The voice was light, male, thickened with a strong German accent. Dean heard the low grunt again and realised that things were worse than he'd known. They had the others too.

"How did you find us?"

"He won't talk like this, Baeder." Another voice. Male. German accent. Not as strong.

"The others are awake." A boy's voice, young enough to not have broken yet.

"Thank you, Jesse," Baeder said, the words clipped and without feeling. "Tell Hubertus that we need him."

"Yessir," the boy said, and Dean opened his eyes narrowly again, watching a pair of small sneakers walk past him and around the sofa that blocked most of his view of the room. The kid sounded American, he thought, wondering what the hell he was doing here.

Heavy bootsteps entered the room from the same direction that the kid had gone and Dean narrowed his eyes further, barely slits as he watched a pair of worn, leather mountain climbers boots stop in front of him.

"You wanted me?"

The voice was male and deeper than the other two, an accent there but difficult to place.

"Which one is the leader?" Baeder asked abruptly.

Dean saw the boots turn and take a step toward him, eyes widening in shock as he felt himself lifted by one hand to his feet, the man's grip shifting to his shoulder and shoving him forward between the sofa and an armchair toward the two men standing on either side of Elias.

Elias' face was swelling rapidly, raw red scrapes over chin and cheekbone and temple, one eye closed, the other slitted. Worked over only, Dean thought, regaining his balance as he stopped a few feet from them.

"Get him out," Baeder said, gesturing to the auburn-haired hunter in the chair and walking toward Dean.

"How did you find us?" he asked, stepping close.

"Lucky guess," Dean said flippantly, his gaze skimming around the room. Two doors, one just on the edge of his peripheral vision leading into the house. The other a double-glazed French door set leading to the long front porch. The room was big, the furniture over-sized and generously spread out, a fire burning in a massive closed wood-stove in an interior wall. On the other side of the sofa a man and the woman he'd seen earlier stood, both watching silently. Maggie and Danielle were lying behind the second man, both bruised, both breathing. Maggie was staring at him, the side of her mouth swollen and bleeding. One eyelid flickered.

He saw the blow from the corner of his eye, telegraphed in the lift of the man's shoulder. The tightly closed fist was meant to hit his mouth, he thought, turning his head a fraction before it connected so that it scraped along his jaw instead, letting his weight drop back onto his right foot and dissipating the power as he rode it. He tasted blood from a cut on the inside of his cheek and dropped his head, spitting it onto the floor as he looked back at Baeder.

"How did you find us?" Baeder repeated monotonously.

"Googled you," Dean said, one side of his mouth lifting quirking up insouciantly.

The blow from behind hit his kidney and felt like someone had rammed a tree-trunk into it. He staggered forward, vision sparkling as his nervous system absorbed the information and overloaded momentarily, pain sinking in through his back and down his legs. _Christ_, he thought disbelievingly, _stay on your fucking feet_. A quarter turn of his head as he tried to keep his balance showed the impassive face of the man who'd picked him up, standing behind him. _The one who'd picked him one-handed_, he corrected himself. He wasn't pretty enough to be a fallen angel. That left one possibility and he felt his confidence sink as he took in the strength and power of the man who was not a man. Not entirely.

Sucking in air, he straightened up as much as he could, turning a little so that his back wasn't to the cambion.

"I will ask you one more time –"

"Don't be ridiculous, Baeder," the other man said lazily. "They won't talk like this."

"Your suggestion, Dietrich?"

Dietrich smiled slowly, walking to Danielle and lifting her easily to her feet, thrusting her forward toward the half-breed.

"It's Winchester, isn't it?" he said conversationally to Dean, the smile lingering. Dean didn't respond, his expression flattened out to a stony stare.

"Well, Mr Winchester, we would very much like to know how it is you could find us in this wilderness ..." Dietrich gestured at the girl and Draxler stepped forward, his hands closing around her shoulders. Dean kept his gaze on Dietrich.

"... with such accuracy," the blond man continued. "If you do not tell us, Mr Draxler here will pull the girl apart, slowly. You have thirty seconds."

Dean had zero doubt that the man could do it. Zero doubt that he would do it. He stared at Dietrich, letting the silence grow for ten seconds.

"The Qaddiysh told us," Dean said, letting his shoulders drop a little. "We saw them in Jordan."

"The Qaddiysh cannot see us," Baeder spat at him, his face screwing up in fury.

Dean looked at him briefly and turned his gaze back to Dietrich. "They can. They told us they wouldn't get involved but they showed us the location of your base in Utah and they told us you were stuck here, until the passes clear."

He risked a glance at Draxler. The man's face showed no reaction. Danielle's face was white, her eyes wide.

"How else could we possibly have found you?" he asked, eyes returning to Dietrich.

Dietrich studied him thoughtfully. "That is an excellent question. You came here to … what? Take us out?"

Dean shrugged. "Prevention's better than cure."

"Yes," Dietrich nodded slowly. "Something I believe as well."

He turned sharply from Dean and looked at Draxler. "Take them out and shoot them, leave the bodies for the wolves," he said to the cambion. "Not the girl or the woman," he added as Draxler started to push Danielle toward the porch doors.

Dean saw the flicker of an expression cross Draxler's face as he released Danielle, going to the chair to pull Elias out. The half-breed's jacket gaped a little as he leaned forward and he saw the sub-machinegun in a modified holster under it, swearing inwardly as he realised that whatever move he was going to make, it would have to be now. They would have no chance at all against the cambion and the gun.

Dietrich moved behind him, walking toward Danielle and Dean threw himself backward, feeling the other man go down under him, hearing the crack of his skull hitting the hardwood floor. He rolled over and snapped back to his feet, the shoulder-spring taking him close to Sam, who was rolling to his feet, already moving as they ran for the French doors together.

"GET THEM!" Baeder screamed. "_KILL THEM!_"

The doors were cedar, the light wood splintering under their combined weight and speed, the thick double glass panes falling free and smashing on the stone pavers. Dean felt blood running down the side of his face as he rolled up, turning hard to the right and seeing his brother doing the same, both pelting along the porch as the crunch of boots on glass sounded behind them.

"Plan?" Sam gasped as they made the corner with two bullets zinging past their ears.

"Stop," Dean snapped, his hands stinging furiously in the cold air, the long sliver of broken glass he'd picked up from the broken doors cutting through his palms. "Turn around."

He felt for his brother's wrists, slicing through the thin plastic wire and feeling Sam turn around behind him, taking the glass from him, pressure as he cut through and freed him.

_The fucking susvee was four miles away_ … the thought disappeared as he turned to look at Sam, following his brother's surprised look across the yard. The susvee was sitting a hundred yards distant, in front of the long machinery shed.

"Get the Stingers and start taking the house down from the other end, I'll get the others," Dean said. He could hear Draxler's boots thundering down the porch toward them and he shoved Sam toward the back corner of the building. "NOW!"

Breaking out left, Dean headed across the yard toward the big barn, his soles slipping a little on the hard-frozen snow. A glance over his shoulder showed Draxler was following him and gaining. There was no sign of his little brother.

_Just get him down and get that gun_, he told himself as he shot through the partially open sliding doors into the darkness of the barn. He had the feeling that the darkness would work against him but he needed something to keep the half-breed off him as much as possible. One on one wasn't going to give him any advantage.

"You can't get out," Draxler's deep voice was muffled in the interior of the barn, absorbed by the bales of hay and straw that were stacked along the walls. "You cannot beat me."

_We'll see_, Dean thought, moving as quietly as he could along the wall of stalls. He saw the long shaft and grabbed it, reversing it smoothly and holding it out, the sharp prongs of the tool casting off a faint gleam in the dim snow-reflected light from the doorway.

_Gotta gun so all he has to do is shoot you_. The thought ran through his mind and he threw himself to one side, the expected bullets whining above him.

"I can see you, human, but you cannot see me," Draxler said, moving more cautiously as Dean moved behind the stacks of hay.

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon**_

The scanner moved slowly over her stomach and Alex looked over at the monitor as Kim angled it this way and that, looking for the best picture.

"Are those –?"

The slender doctor nodded. "Two heartbeats," she said, capturing the image and sending it to the computer. "Twins. Fraternal, I think, not identical."

"How can you tell?" Alex asked, feeling her pulse accelerating.

"One is a little larger than the other," Kim said, peering more closely at the grainy image on the screen. "Not always reliable but in this case, more probable." She captured another image and lifted the scanner from Alex's skin, drying it and setting it down and passing a sterilised cloth to Alex to wipe the gel from her stomach.

"Why?"

"Because of the effect of Ninhursag," Kim answered absently as she called up the files and ran them through the software Mitch had created to get the highest resolution from the pictures. "So far, we're seeing around eighty percent multiple births, and most of them will be the same, a day or two at most difference in conceptions, possibly even different fathers, although I hope not."

"Super-charged fertility clinic on the go," Alex said tiredly, sitting up and thinking of the ramifications of that. "Did you finish the statistical probabilities for Jerome?"

"This morning," Kim said, turning back to her. "Alex, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you. We're really much more worried about the women at either end of the age spectrum, especially the older ones."

"Mmm-hmmm."

"You're perfectly healthy, both babies have strong heartbeats and they look exactly as they should for this stage," Kim said, hitting the print button and retrieving the print out as it hit the tray. "Look, see for yourself."

The picture was still grainy, but she could see them now, the second shot capturing the tiny, curled up children growing in her. Two.

"When do I have to come back?" she asked Kim, handing back the printout.

"No, you can keep that, show it to Dean when he gets back," Kim said, shaking her head. "At twenty weeks. We'll be able to see the sex then if they cooperate. Just a routine check."

Alex nodded. "If there was anything wrong, when would you see it?"

Kim sighed and looked up at her. "If there was anything wrong with the babies, we'll see it in the first three months. If anything goes wrong with their environment – you – it could happen at any time. But I seriously doubt anything will. And I mean that."

She added the pictures to the file and stood up. "Get dressed, and we'll go over what you can expect in the next few weeks, okay?"

Nodding, Alex slid off the examination table, picking up her shirt and slipping her arms in. _It was all very well for Kim to say 'don't worry'_, she thought dryly. It wasn't so easy not to worry about something she'd never thought she'd experience. The dreams she'd been getting over the last two nights hadn't helped her feel calmer. She couldn't remember them when she woke, just the feelings they left, a tangled mess of fear and aching grief that she couldn't source.

When he was here, she didn't have bad dreams. She had a feeling he didn't either. She couldn't take anything to help her sleep dreamlessly now. He'll be back soon, she told herself, buttoning up her jeans and pulling on her boots.

* * *

_**Taos, New Mexico**_

_Gotta get back to the house_, Dean thought, moving faster behind the stack. He dropped as machinegun chattered furiously, bullets spraying out through the hay bales, rolling hard forward and bringing the pitch fork up as Draxler came around the end and the gun dropped silent. Empty. He heard the clatter as it hit the floor, the cambion throwing it aside.

The half-breed moved with surprising speed, and he backed out between the row of bales and the side of the stalls fast, catching sight of the white snow in the gap between the two tall doors as he retreated toward it.

"Do you have any idea of what I am?"

"Sure," Dean said, shifting his weight to his back foot as Draxler closed the space between them. "Half-breed."

Another flicker of some unidentifiable emotion crossed the man's face. There were feelings somewhere in there, Dean thought distantly. Well-hidden but there.

For a moment they both stopped, Draxler less than six feet from him, the tines of the fork between them. Then the half-breed moved, a fast feint to the left and back to the right, and Dean drove forward, anticipating the deception, the tines burying themselves deeply into Draxler's chest as he launched his weight behind the tool.

The cambion grunted, hand curling around the haft and holding on as he shifted back, dragging Dean with him before he thought to release the fork. Draxler pulled the tines free, throwing the tool to the floor, and stepped in, one hand whipping toward the man and fingers scraping over his jacket as Dean shifted frantically backward. If the bastard got a hold of him, he knew, it was all over. He turned slightly and raced for the door.

He'd barely cleared it when he felt the blow between his shoulders, knocking him forward onto the churned snow and frozen mud at the entrance. Rolling to the side, he was on his feet, as Draxler stepped in. _Alright, fuck it. Think. Human and demon. Same nervous system. Same structure. Stronger, tougher, maybe but the weaknesses will be there too_.

He dropped into a slight crouch, his attention narrowed down to a tight focus on the other man. Draxler smiled, moving closer, his hands lifted and in front of chest and Dean jumped, twisting in the air, moving faster than he'd ever moved before, his booted sole smashing the half-breed's right hand back against his chest. The left reached for him and he felt the scrape of the stiffened, steel-hard fingers down the outside of his thigh as he twisted hard and dropped to the ground on his feet and hands, ducking and rolling across the snow to get out of range.

The cambion was looking at him oddly when he rolled to his feet and turned to face him. The fingers of the right-hand were bent and twisted and he saw Draxler look down at it for a moment, letting it drop as he realised he couldn't make it close.

Dean wasn't sure he could pull off the same move twice, but the half-breed gave him an opening when Sam started firing the holy oil missiles at the house, the sharp whistle of the projectile and the explosion dragging Draxler's attention for a fraction of a second and he was in the air again, feeling the crack of bone beneath his feet as they hit the other hand and hammered it between boot and ribs. The cambion was faster this time, one arm hooking around his knee as he twisted aside, a bolt of pain from the twisted joint shooting up through his groin to his back. He lashed out with his other leg, catching Draxler in the side of the face and the half-breed let go, both men falling to the ground as the house behind them was hit with another missile and Dean heard the sound of small-arms fire.

He stood up, feeling the fire in his knee and flexing it slowly, testing it for damage. _Wrenched_, he decided as he put his weight gingerly over it. _Nothing broken_.

Draxler rolled onto his side, both hands hanging limply now and stared at him. In the dark eyes, Dean saw a dawning recognition of the idea of defeat. He forced himself to spread his weight evenly over both feet, saw the half-breed hesitate.

The centre of the house exploded and the pressure and heat wave from the blast knocked them both to the ground. _Maggie_, Dean thought bleakly, throwing his arm over his head as he squinted at the bright flames that licked through the room they'd been held in. That flickering wink had been deliberate.

He got up, turning away from the cambion and running for the house, his knee protesting fiercely as it took his weight from stride to stride. He saw someone stagger out, and accelerated, ignoring the pain. Elias had Danielle over one shoulder, both reddened from the proximity to the fire. He heard the susvee's distinctive engine start up and took the girl from the hunter's shoulder, shifting her weight over his own, and jerking his head toward the vehicle as Sam turned it to pass in front of the house.

As he handed Danielle up to Elias through the open rear door, he glanced back into the raging inferno in the house, seeing figures moving inside against the flames, uncaring of who they were. Grabbing holding of the door, he pulled himself up and inside the cab as Sam gunned the engine and the tracks bit into the snow-covered ground. Draxler staggered past them, his attention fixed on the house.

"What happened?" Dean climbed through the gap between the two front seats, looking back at Elias as he pulled Danielle into a half-sitting position over his legs.

"The woman and Dietrich started in on Danielle and Maggie detonated one of Franklin's bombs," Elias said sharply. "I knew she had it on her, but I couldn't think of a way to use it and get us all out." He looked up, his face slightly illuminated from the dash lights in the front of the cab. "I think the woman in there and the other man were killed. I was on the floor and so was Danielle. Dietrich and Baeder, I don't know."

Dean thought of the figures he'd seen in the fire. Severe burns at best, he hoped. Incineration would be preferable. He looked at Sam's profile as his brother concentrated on the road ahead of them.

"What'd you hit?"

"Took out the end of the house with the first one," Sam said shortly. "Got their vehicles with the second and then just started to work along the house when the centre went up. Figured it was time to go."

"Figured right."

"Can they follow us?" Elias asked from the back.

"Not anytime soon," Sam said over his shoulder. "Not unless they got another way of getting to more vehicles."

"Good."

Dean nodded, leaning back against the seat. "Danielle alright?"

Elias was silent for a moment, then he nodded. "She will be, I think."

Closing his eyes, Dean looked back through the disjointed memories he had of the last two hours. They'd done what they'd come for. The Grigori were stuck there until they could either get reinforcements or until the weather warmed enough to clear the passes. They knew a bit more about the cambion as well. Not enough, but it was a start. They'd lost a valuable hunter …

He dragged in a deep breath, rubbing the back of his hand over his eyes, feeling the stickiness on the side of his face.

"Straight through?" Sam asked, glancing over at him.

"Yeah," Dean said. "We'll take shifts."

Not a win. Not really, he thought tiredly.

* * *

Draxler pulled Baeder out of the room, careful not to touch the bubbling and raw skin on the fallen's right side. Behind him, Dietrich lay in the snow, teeth grinding together as he fought against the pain of the burns that riddled his right side.

The cambion lowered Baeder to the snow and packed it against the burns, the Grigori unconscious and limp now. He knelt beside him when he'd finished, looking at the burning house and the long shed that had held all their vehicles. The hunters had been spectacularly lucky in what they'd achieved, he thought. Perhaps not just lucky, perhaps also clever in their ability to improvise as the situation had dictated. The old woman had been very clever, first in hiding the device and secondly in giving up her life for the others. He couldn't imagine himself – or any of the fallen – doing the same. Was it a strength or a weakness, he wondered?

Two of the nephilim were dead. The other three were alive, one burned. He didn't know where Jesse and Alison were. But they were able to take care of themselves.

For a moment, he remembered the fight with the man. He looked down at his hands. They were still broken and bent but they were healing, as they all healed, immortal if their hearts remained beating in their chests. The man had been fast, he thought. Faster than he'd encountered before. Strong as well. But it had been his strategy that had allowed him to escape, Draxler knew. It had been a long time since he'd needed a strategy with any opponent. That was a weakness on his part, to have underestimated the man. He would not make the mistake again. Winchester, he reminded himself, had defeated Lucifer. A tiny thread of some emotion he didn't know how to characterise filtered through the thoughts.

He would be ready the next time they met, he told himself, ignoring that thread. He would be ready.


	10. Chapter 10 Vanishing Point

**Chapter 10 Vanishing Point**

* * *

_**Heaven**_

Castiel paced across the smooth marble floor, glancing every now and then at the slumped form of the archangel on the low dais.

"I cannot believe it, Castiel," Michael said quietly and Cas turned to him, his face tightening.

"Believe it. Raphael has been in this from the beginning." He looked down absently at the vessel he wore. The suit and trenchcoat were completely out of place in this hall, but he couldn't just leave the vessel down there as he came and went. And, he admitted a little reluctantly to himself, he liked the body. It gave very little trouble overall.

"Meddling with the lines – trafficking with the hellspawn – breaking the seals –" Michael said, his voice raw.

"Killing angels," Cas added. "Consorting with the fallen. Inciting rebellion. Treason. Disobedience."

Michael's gaze snapped up to the seraphim's face. "It will be war."

Castiel nodded tiredly. "I know."

"We have no proof," Michael said, his wings lifting restlessly behind him.

"Absence of proof is not proof of absence, my Lord," Castiel reminded him. "It was Raphael's suggestion to imprison the Scribe, when he learned of the tablets. It was Raphael's order that the cherubim followed when they united the Winchester and Campbell lines, specifically the bloodlines of Araquiel and Azazel. It was Raphael's command that Azazel begin his work in Kansas."

"And Uriel," Michael said, getting to his feet.

"Uriel has gone beyond punishment or redemption, Michael."

The archangel sighed as he stepped off the dais. "How many followers does Raphael have?"

Cas shook his head. "At a rough guess? Perhaps seven or eight thousand."

"What does he want with the Grigori?"

"The Angel tablet, I believe," Cas said.

Michael's eyes narrowed at him. "That has been lost for centuries."

"No."

"You know its location?" Michael raised a brow at the seraphim, wondering at his certainty.

"No," Cas said. "Only the region. The scholars believe that the angels and the nephilim of the Grigori fought a battle in the desert. All traces of that battle were wiped clean by a sandstorm lasting three months. At the site of that battle, the hiding place of the Angel tablet."

"Have we verified that?" Michael frowned.

"Yes, to some extent. It is in our records. There was a battle, between nephilim and angel – not the Host," Cas said. "The battalion was under Uriel's command. The original orders were destroyed."

"I don't understand," Michael said slowly, looking at him. "What possible use could the tablet have been to Raphael?"

"Only one knows what the Word contained, my Lord," Castiel said carefully. "But it seems possible along with the instructions for closing the gates of Heaven, there may be other things on the tablet – devices or spells or ways of … disabling us, if humanity needed them."

"You think Raphael wants to somehow – what? Take away the power of the Host so that his followers will have victory?"

Cas sighed. "It's what I would do in his position."

"You have spent entirely too much time on the lower plane."

"Undoubtedly," Cas agreed. "Raphael was the last angel to see Metatron in Heaven, Michael. The Scribe fled following that meeting. A simple study of cause and effect–"

"Yes, I see your point," Michael cut him off. "We have been searching for Metatron for three thousand years. We are not going to find him now."

"It seems unlikely."

"And these meetings, with the Grigori," Michael asked, turning to watch the seraphim as he resumed his pacing. "They were all on the lower plane?"

"Yes," Cas said, his speed increasing slightly. "Raphael has been to see all three groups. We believe that he has also had meeting with the new ruler of Hell."

"Upstart," Michael sniffed disdainfully. "Did we discover what happened to the remaining Fallen?"

Cas shook his head. "Nothing we've tried so far has been able to reveal their situation. If they are still alive, they're deep in the lower levels, beyond our capabilities to see or sense."

"Who do you trust?" The archangel looked at him.

"No one."

* * *

_**January 20, 2013. West Keep, Lebanon**_

Firelight flickered against the white, plastered walls and Dean looked up from the pages he was reading as he registered the cooling of the room. Putting the sheaf of papers on the table, he got up and walked to the hearth, stirring the embers and throwing another couple of logs onto the coals.

On the sofa, Alex was sleeping, her fingers still holding a couple of pages loosely. He gently pulled them free and pulled the thick, hand-woven blanket from the back of the sofa over her. They'd been reading and analysing Chuck's latest 'chapters' for hours, trying to find more clues in the narratives.

There was nothing about the army in the latest vision and he wasn't sure how to take that. Did it mean that their trip to New Mexico had been successful and had stopped the Grigori from being able to go down that road? Somehow, he doubted it. It might've derailed the timetable, but as long as Chuck was here, the plan would remain in place. If they had the tablet, they needed the prophet to read it.

That was bugging the crap out of him as well. Moving Chuck might save the keeps and the population. The problem was he couldn't think of anywhere that was safer than where the writer was now. Even angel-and-demon-proofed, there was nowhere more defensible than the order's safehold. And the narrative had implied that the Grigori were looking for leverage anyway. It might not save the people here if the army arrived and the prophet was gone. It might make an attack that much worse.

Walking to the kitchen, he emptied the cold grounds in the coffee pot and refilled it absently, his thoughts circling around the account Chuck had written out. In it, again, he and Sam were … somewhere else. There wasn't enough detail to figure out why or where. Woods. An old boneyard with no details as to where it might be. A gate to Hell, in the centre of it.

He returned to the chair, picking up the last few pages and carrying them to the small kitchen table, his gaze skimming over the text until he found the description.

'_The air shimmered, as if the dim light caught something there, but when Dean turned to look at it directly that shimmer disappeared and he could see nothing beyond the ordinary, leaning tombstones and brown, dried grasses, stiff with frost. As a light breeze blew between the leafless trees and dying undergrowth, the hunter caught the scent of sulphur, not consistently, but in tantalising wafts, here and then gone, as if the doorway was opening and closing, letting out the stench of the other plane in snatches.'_

_What the fuck did that mean_, Dean wondered? From the description, the gate was in the middle of a tiny clearing in the cemetery, hanging mid-air. It couldn't be seen directly but only from the corner of the eye. And was it open? Or was it opening and closing on its own?

The pot burbled softly to itself and he put the pages on the table, getting a cup from the cupboard and filling it, carrying both coffee and papers back to the armchair and sitting down again.

There was something familiar in the description but he couldn't nail it, couldn't retrieve either the sense of why it was familiar, or any memory that matched up with the location.

When they'd gotten back from Taos, he and Sam had gone straight to the order on Bobby's request. The spell keyed from the scribe of God's sigil had returned seven locations, around the world, and Mitch had used the sigil as the marker on the war table in the situation room, each location glowing a bright blue. One was in the desert, between Jordan and Iraq. Both Jerome and Jasper believed that to be the site of an underground city of the dead, _Gem Shel Yed'e_, and the most likely location for the Angel tablet. Three were in the US – in Montana, Florida and Massachusetts. There had been, apparently, a lot of arguments about the Massachusetts location, the spell had not given the location definitively, the flames moving around the area instead of remaining steady. He wasn't sure what to make of that, since none of those who'd seen it were describing it in exactly the same way either, as if they'd all seen the flames from a slightly different perspective.

The fifth location was in Egypt, and all three professors had agreed that was most likely the resting place of the Ten Commandments. He shook his head slightly, the corner of his mouth lifting with the association of a well-known and well-liked action film.

The sixth was in the arctic, north of the sixtieth meridian and as inaccessible to them as anything could possibly be. The seventh appeared to be in the order's chapter in Australia, possibly now buried under tons of rock.

The order had acquired the most detailed survey and topographical maps of the country in digital form before Lucifer had risen, and from the locations provided by the spell, both the Florida and Montana sites seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The Massachusetts site, however much it'd moved around, was in Boston. He thought that was significant, although he wasn't sure how.

Anchoring the papers with his cup, he rubbed a hand tiredly over his face, ignoring the prick of two-day stubble against his fingers. There were too many fucking variables here, and not enough information, he thought irritably. They were hunting for clues in visions and spells, and the sense of things converging around them, converging on top of them, was getting stronger in the back of his mind. The uneasiness at the vision's insistence that he and Sam weren't here when the army attacked was growing as well. There was no fucking way he was going to be anywhere but here. He couldn't think of a single valid reason why he wouldn't be, knowing what they knew.

Felix had suggested that the movement of the Mass location was because the tablet was no longer on this plane. It made as much as sense as anything else. It also made getting the damned thing a lot harder, he thought sourly. There were ways into Hell, Jerome said. Ways to open the gates. But legend insisted that the gates were guarded. And they didn't know where they were.

_Not true_, he remembered suddenly. He knew for certain where one gate had been. Jim's journal had given the location of the gate in Pasadena. Of course, as of a year ago, Pasadena was somewhere under half a mile of water, the earthquakes that had riven California finally stressing the fault enough that a sizeable chunk of the state had collapsed into the ocean. It wasn't helpful.

He picked up the cup and his sleeve brushed against the papers, knocking the pile to the floor. Putting the cup down, he leaned over and gathered them up, flicking through them to put them back into order. He stopped as he saw the glossy printout in the middle, the grainy black and white image leaping out at him and catching at the breath in his throat.

Alex had handed it to him earlier and he glanced at it, more focussed on the prophet's visions, the spell's results and the bitter, underlying taste of Maggie's loss to pay attention to it then. She'd said that Kim had been checking the pregnancies over the last week and a half. Eighty percent, perhaps higher by now, multiple births. Humanity repopulating the globe in triple time.

And two, these two, were his.

Feeling surged through him, an overwhelming tumult, holding him fiercely in its grip as he glanced across at the face of the woman lying on the sofa and back to the printout he held. This was exactly why he couldn't believe in the visions, he thought. He'd die before he put them at risk.

Dragging in a deep breath and waiting for the emotions to settle, he slid the printout under the pile. When he'd told Lisa, in Cicero, that it wasn't his life, he'd known that he'd wanted it. Wanted it more than he could admit to, more than he could face. It'd taken every ounce of self-control he'd had to walk away from that invitation. It hadn't been right, he knew, not then and with her, not even later. But he'd wanted the promise of it. It'd taken him a long time to bury that knowledge, bury it deep and not look at it again. Everything that'd happened since then had proved to him that he'd been right to do that, right to feel that it wasn't for him, couldn't be his.

He still wasn't completely sure that he was doing the right thing. Not completely sure that with all that he'd done, he would be allowed to have it. Not certain that he wasn't putting Alex in harm's way again. For whatever reasons, he thought, an edge of bitterness trailing along the thought, he was still in the middle of everything. And everyone around him was at risk of being drawn into the schemes he could feel building around him and his brother. But the truth was he couldn't – he didn't _want_ to – let go of her now. No matter what the risks were.

Getting to his feet, he walked to the sofa, pushing the blanket back and sliding his arms under her shoulders and knees, straightening his legs as he took her weight and lifted. He carried her to the bedroom and put her on the bed, sitting down on the edge to take off his boots.

"What time is it?" Alex asked sleepily from behind him.

"Late," he told her, turning around and seeing her watching him through half-open eyes. "Go back to sleep."

She shook her head, sitting up and tucking her head in as she drew off her sweater and shirt. Dean stood, unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his jeans, letting them fall to the floor as he pulled off his shirt, heat already coruscating along his nerves as he watched her undress in front of him.

_This is yours_, he told himself as his mouth trailed lightly down her heated skin, tasting her unobtrusively. _No one can take this away_.

From the moment he woke in the mornings, hearing the soft whisper of breath beside him, to the moment he closed his eyes at night, the weight and worry gone in the warmth of her arms around him, it was a potent reminder that he wasn't fighting on his own, a real and tangible reminder that he had something to live for, to fight for, that wasn't an abstract of the many and the few and the sacrifices made by good men.

Her fingers trembled down his side and his breath whistled as he sucked it in through his teeth, muscle twitching and jumping with the sharp pleasure that followed them under and over his skin. It was never the same, instinct overriding technique and satiation a distant and unlooked-at goal, the path toward it meandering and fully explored, never hurried, always lingering in the flush of senses fully aware and the craving for a deeper connection, a deeper joining.

He still had no control. No ability to hold anything back. No desire to do so either, but even if he'd wanted to, he couldn't. Couldn't find distance or breath. Couldn't deny himself or her. Couldn't hold on and couldn't let go, every taste and touch, every sensation that crackled in lightning bolts along his nerves and inundated his brain, dictating that he accept and immerse himself, without thought or volition. And that abandon, that complete lack of control, of mind, of thought, reached right through him, amplifying everything, liquefying everything, drowning him and saving him and dissolving him.

Holding his weight above her on his arms, the big muscles trembling with the effort, he blinked rapidly, trying to get the spots and sparkles and black edges that had filled his vision clear again. Under him, Alex was panting quietly, lips parted and eyes half-closed, pupils enormous. The wide bed smelled of musk and clean sweat, the scents of their bodies mingled. _This is mine_, he thought incoherently, not sure of what he meant.

* * *

_**Taos, New Mexico**_

More than half of the long building was blackened and crumbling, Crowley thought, looking at the stark, skeletal remains. Turning, he saw the burned out frames of the vehicles, surrounded by metal sheets that had been twisted into spirals by the ferocious heat. Three men and two woman, he thought. Two of them had been the Winchesters, of course, and he probably should've warned the Grigori about the chequered history of those two, although he hadn't really believed the stories up till now, but still … five humans.

"We will hunt them down," Baeder's voice came croakily from beside him.

Crowley turned back to the two angels and looked at him expressionlessly. "In the state you're in now?" He shook his head. "No, we'll take them, make no mistake about that, but we'll do it my way, with an army and some leverage."

Baeder glowered at him from his remaining greyish-blue eye. The angels would heal, they always did, Crowley thought. But it would be a slow process and where the holy oil had touched them, he thought it would not heal up. Half of the angel's face was melted, the missing eye had been incinerated in its socket, and the shiny, brilliant red skin was still weeping here and there, clear liquid escaping as the swelling slowly receded. The scars would stay.

He knew that was what offended both men the most. Not the death of their peers, and he suspected, Baeder's paramour, but the fact that they were no longer beautiful. Were now, in fact, showing more of what had lain on the inside on their outsides. _God's somewhat nasty sense of humour_, the demon thought derisively.

"Where are the others?" he asked, feeling an impatience to be gone from here.

Dietrich turned and looked in the direction of the barn and two women, four men and two children came out across the crisp, recent fall of powder. Two of the nephilim had been burned as well, Crowley saw. The others seemed alright. He kept his face impassive as he noticed Draxler's hands, both swollen and misshapen under soft bandages.

"Walking wounded," he commented lightly. "Come on, what I've got to show will improve your spirits, I dare say."

He spread his arms as they gathered close to him and the air rushed in to fill where they'd been as they disappeared, leaving the dank smell of wet, burned wood and charred stone to fill the small valley in peace.

* * *

_**35º41'01.73N 54º39'33.07W, Atlantic Ocean**_

The yacht was moving fast, heeled over on her side, the water bubbling and frothing as she cut through the waves, the force of her keel against the water holding her course against the opposing force of the wind on the sails. Peter drew in a deep breath of the ridiculously fresh, salt-laden air and smiled unconsciously. Until they reached land again, there was nothing to think about, nothing to worry about except their course and the state of his boat. It was a period of rest that he was enjoying immensely.

The trade winds blew steadily against them, the boat close-hauled and making good speed. Over the thousands of miles of ocean fetch, the waves were regular, long and widely spaced, their crests furling in small explosions of white foam and sliding behind them without more than a gentle dip and sigh.

He looked down at the companionway as Elena climbed into the cockpit, her short hair shining in the bright sunlight, eyes crinkling a little as she smiled back at him.

"We are making good time," she said, less of a question than a statement.

He nodded. "Averaging a hundred and thirty miles a day. We'll reach the edge of the banks in a day."

"It went too quickly."

Inclining his head in acknowledgement, he glanced down at the dark cabin below. "The Qaddiysh are resting?"

"No, they are arguing," she told him, her tone slightly acerbic. "They would disagree –"

She cut herself off as Peter's gaze went back to the hatch and Penemue climbed out, moving to the higher side of the cockpit and drawing in a deep breath, the frown creasing his forehead smoothing out as he looked around.

"Have you come to an agreement?" Elena asked him.

The _Irin_ turned to look at her and shrugged. "Of a sort. Perhaps. We will go to Kansas, talk to the hunters about re-imprisoning the goddesses."

"Good," she said, her teeth closing with a faint snap.

He smiled at her. "We still think the tablets are more important, Elena," he said. "As well hidden as they are, they can still be found – and if their use is understood ..." he trailed away, looking back over the endless procession of waves.

"What?" Peter asked curiously.

"When he completed the Word and delivered the tablets to us, the Scribe told us that Heaven would seek it out."

"Why?" Elena frowned at him. "It is to protect humanity, is it not?"

Penemue sighed. "Each tablet, on its own and of itself, holds great power. There are secrets written into them, secrets to control the forces that were set in place to help humanity evolve. Weapons. Spells. Instructions on how to neutralise those forces, and to lock them up."

Peter nodded impatiently. "Yes, we know this."

"Each tablet – within its text there is more, revealed only to the prophet who may study them. Metatron said that we had to protect the tablets from everyone, because the power of God's Word could also be accessed from them."

The hunters glanced at each other, and Peter turned back to Penemue. "The actual power of God is held in the tablets? That it can be accessed and used?"

The _Irin_ nodded slowly. "It is better than that," he added, his eyes narrowing as he looked west. "When all the tablets are brought together, that power is magnified."

Peter looked at him, feeling the blood in his veins turn to ice. "That is why Raphael is rebelling? To regain that power so that he can wield it?"

"We think so."

"Can the tablets be destroyed?" Elena asked, her skin crawling with the thought of anyone – angel, demon or human – with that sort of power.

"No," Penemue said heavily. "Not by anything we know of. They can be used, to close and lock the other planes. To protect humanity against the forces of Hell or Heaven or the Mother's children. But as with the box we brought with us, that power is always going to be double-edged. They must be hidden away. They must be impossible to find."

* * *

Elena braced herself in the hatchway, the sextant held against her eye as her fingers slowly lowered the mirror to bring the limb to the horizon.

"_Merde!_"

Peter looked at her as she shifted her position against the doghouse ledge and tried again. She'd been getting slightly more impatient, he'd noticed, over the last few days, a little quicker to snap at the four men, a fraction more likely to get flustered. He wondered if it was just the necessary close quarters of the small yacht.

She swayed with the boat's movements, the sextant raised again.

"_Fils de putain!_"

For a moment he thought she might throw the instrument overboard and he looked away quickly. He heard the exaggeratedly deep breath she took and risked another glance. She was once again peering through the lens to the mirror, her fingers delicate on the screw. This time she looked at the measurement and at her watch, memorising both, and went below.

Peter waited until she came up again.

"We didn't need the extra sight," he remarked blandly.

"We are still at least four days out from Rhode Island," she said shortly. "And the current will be against us when we get close."

"And then we will have a long walk to Kansas," Peter said, shrugging slightly. "Elena, is there anything wrong?"

She looked away. "No, I'm fine."

He withheld his opinion on that, letting the silence stretch out between them.

"_Non_, you are right," she burst out a few minutes later, thin shoulders hunching up defensively. "I am not fine."

"What's wrong?"

"_Je me sens incroyablement sexuel!_" she said, her skin flushing a pale pink from her collarbones as she looked at the taut sail above them. "It is – a part – never mind!"

"Elena –"

She was on deck and moving fast up toward the foredeck before he could finish, hands gripping the wire rail and rigging as she went.

Baraquiel emerged from the cabin and looked from Peter to Elena.

"What is going on?" Peter asked him in bewilderment.

"You have no children, Peter?"

He stared at the Irin, more baffled. "No."

The red-haired angel smiled, a little ruefully. "For some women, at a certain point in the pregnancy, there is an increase in libido," he explained, gesturing discreetly toward the bow of the boat. "I suspect that Elena is one of those women. The hormones, the changes, they all make it worse, emotionally as well as physically."

Peter frowned at him and looked at the hunched figure sitting on the winch near the bows. "She's feeling … uh … frustrated?"

"Indeed," Baraquiel said. "Look at her situation. How much more frustrating could it be?"

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Lebanon**_

The situation room was crowded, the scholars and hunters surrounding the underlit table. Ellen looked along the length of it, listening to the crossed conversations that were flowing back and forth, her gaze flicking from time to time to Dean, who stood at one end, staring down at the blue locations with brows drawn together.

"We can't know that the irregularity of the spells means that the tablet is located in another dimension," Maurice said to Jasper patiently. "Jerome said it himself, the spells aren't that infallible."

"We know that the Angel tablet, that is certainly not on any other plane, showed a stable response. As did the others," Jasper argued. "Except for the one in Massachusetts. That is a solid indicator that the spells worked fine!"

"Alright, enough, everybody," Bobby growled, glaring around the table. "We got too many cooks in here, and we need to cut through this crap and get down to what we can do."

Jerome nodded sharply. "Aaron, we need supporting lore for the other tablets. Marla, Oliver, if that is indeed the location of the demon tablet, I want everything on opening the gates sorted and ready to use," he snapped. The three researchers left the table and Jerome looked at Katherine and Davis. "The information Michel sent on the location of Ninhursag and Nintu still requires verification and the correct lore on using Pandora's box when the Qaddiysh get here with it."

The archaeologist and language specialist looked at each other and shrugged, turning away and returning to the library.

Sam looked around the table, shifting slightly in the newly available space. Dean was still staring down at the map. Maurice, Rufus, Ellen and Bobby were watching him. On the other side, Chuck, Felix, Jasper and Jerome also looked expectantly at the de facto leader of the free population.

"It's still sixteen hundred miles to Boston," Dean said, looking up into the silence. "And in good weather, with good roads, that'd take a day to drive." He shrugged slightly. "With the snowfall we've got, and god-knows-what kind of roads, that could take weeks," he continued. And he wasn't going anywhere that would take weeks, he added to himself. Not now.

"If it's not on this plane, it wouldn't help anyway," Sam said, looking at the older hunters. "We still need a gate. And a way to get through it."

"We can summon a psychopomp," Jerome said reluctantly. "They can guide the dead – or the living – to any of the planes –"

"For a price," Felix interjected. "And there's no telling what that price will be."

Jerome nodded. "There are a number of spells that can be used as well. But the lore on the gates agrees on one thing –"

"Cerberus," Bobby said caustically, having done his own research on the gates in the last two weeks. "Every account says the hellhound guards the gates and there's no way of getting past it."

"A hellhound?" Maurice looked at Bobby. "I thought there were dozens."

"Not a hellhound," Ellen said. "The Hellhound." She'd read her own share of the lore and the descriptions of the creature had given her nightmares for several days. "Cerberus is a giant two or three-headed dog that guards every gate and kills and devours anyone who tries to get in without permission."

"How do the psychopomps get around that?" Sam asked her.

Bobby looked at him. "No idea. Backdoors? Secret tunnels? Who knows. It's not the only problem though. Hell changes form according to how you enter."

"What do you mean?" Dean looked at him.

"A soul going in sees whatever it's most afraid of," Bobby said, his gaze cutting away from the younger man as he noticed Dean's jaw tightening. "Cas said that when the angels went in to get you out, they were in what he called 'constructs' – flesh and blood but not mortal and the layout stayed fixed for them. But the mythology says that a mortal going into Hell sees a maze, a labyrinth that can change direction, shift levels, become visible or invisible. Mortals can't really see the souls that are in there, or the demons that aren't wearing meatsuits. And the demons can't really see the mortals because the junction between the two planes isn't a stable one, it fluctuates along the join."

"That's a good thing, though, right?" Dean frowned at him, pushing back at the memories of what he'd seen. It would all be useless to him if it didn't match up with what he would see as flesh and blood. "Not being seen?"

"Not necessarily," Ellen said, remembering the section of the book that Bobby was referring to. "It makes it easy to get lost in there, lost so bad that a mortal might not ever find a way out."

"That's reassuring."

"Just one of the problems," Bobby said, shaking his head. "You get in there, it's a different plane but it's an infinite one. There are meeting places where it joins this plane or some other one, but not that many. How do you find one tablet in there?"

"Actually," Felix said, leaning on the table. "That's not such a problem. There is an account in our records of a mortal who went into Hell and came out again – it was an attempt to retrieve an artefact, in fact."

"Where is it?" Bobby asked, pushing back his cap irritably. He thought he'd gotten all the references to the ways in and out of Hell.

"It's cross-referenced with the artefact – one of the golden apples of Hesperides." He gestured at the library behind them. "I'll pull it out for you."

"We still have the problem of protecting Chuck," Rufus interrupted. "Even if you discouraged them, you know they're going to keep coming," he said to Dean.

"Franklin's sending over six of his," Sam said. "Just to add another layer of protection here."

"'Here' isn't the danger," Ellen said. "It's the keeps that'll take the brunt of any attack. Demons may not be able to cross over, and we're angel-proofing everything now, but there's no lore on protection against the half-breeds, and if they can just walk in with bombs, we're going to lose a lot of people for nothing."

Dean looked at her steadily. "Even if we moved Chuck and kept moving, they'd still come here, Ellen. You know that." He flicked a glance at Bobby, seeing the old man's agreement in his eyes. "They'll use everyone here as leverage to get us to hand Chuck over no matter where we are."

Sam saw Chuck swallow uncomfortably, the prophet's gaze fixed on the table surface and his knuckles whitening along the edge.

"There's only one way we're going to be able to stop them – that's getting the tablet first and hoping there's a helluva more info on it than we know about." Dean looked at the faces staring at him, waiting for a disagreement. No one spoke.

"We need the locations of a gate. We need to know if the location matters or if once we're in, then we can find whatever we need to in there. We need to know a way to distract or trick the hellhound so that we can get past it," he continued, his voice deeper than usual and hard. "We need to know how to move around in there and how to get out. And we need to know all those things as soon as possible." He looked at his brother. "We've got another month, maybe six weeks, before the weather gets better and those bastards are on the road, heading for us. So we don't have the luxury of arguing about what we can't do."

* * *

Alex rubbed her eyes and looked down at the notes Chuck had given her.

"Chuck said that he didn't include this because it didn't fit into the vision – he said it was a flash and gone," Father Emilio said, leaning toward her and picking up a page of handwritten notes.

She read through it, frowning at the disjointedness of the images.

_Brimstone. Red. Pulsing. Darkness. Screams and a wailing that reached into his mind. The stairs were stone. People everywhere, embedded in the rock, sinking into lava pits and the demons, flickering past, almost but not quite seen, not quite invisible, the awful light catching parts of them._

"Who is this about?" she asked, looking from Father Emilio to Father McConnaughey, who sat on the other side of the table, his back to the fire.

"We don't know," Father McConnaughey said with a shrug. "Chuck wasn't even sure if this belonged to the last vision."

"But it's Hell, right?" She looked back at the paper. "Is there more?"

"From the first vision," Father Emilio confirmed, lifting the handwritten sheets and skimming through them. "Here."

_The dog was suspicious. He felt his heart stop as it seemed to look straight at him, stuttering back to life as the reddish eyes moved past without recognition. The tablet lay on the wide, polished ebony desk. For a moment, he could see the man, the soul, looking out of the rock face as if through a window. Blood, spilling onto the ground._

"And this was the same – a glimpse of something that he couldn't relate to the rest?"

Father McConnaughey nodded. "He said that these … fragments … overlaid the more linear visions in bursts. He remembers them, but he doesn't know where they fit, what they mean or even who they're referring so he left them out."

"Is this why you think it's Sam?"

The priests glanced at each other. "We do not know who it is that enters Hell, Alex, whether it is to find the tablet or to close the gates," Father Emilio said quietly. "But Chuck's vision has always centred around the Winchesters. And he writes most from Dean's viewpoint."

_That was true_, she thought. Not so much in the earlier novels, but certainly in the later ones. He'd told her it was because there was too much going on with Sam that he didn't understand.

"This also was a glimpse from the last vision," Father McConnaughey said, retrieving another note from the pile and handing it to her. She focussed on the increasingly ragged handwriting.

_Sam stepped forward and handed the stone to the writer. As his hands touched it, there was a flaring light, filling his mind, blinding him. Then there was nothing._

The next paragraph was more disturbing.

_He wasn't human any longer. Nothing but a shell, a conduit, a pipeline to a power he couldn't hope to understand, couldn't dream of envisioning. He was empty and the power poured through him and took everything._

"I think Chuck is more afraid of the tablet than he is of the demon army he knows is coming for him," Father McConnaughey said, looking at the paper she held.

"Can I take these? Dean needs to see them," Alex said, gathering the sheets together.

"Of course, that was why we showed them to you."

"You could've given him these when you spoke to him before," she said, keeping the rebuke in her tone to a minimum.

"Chuck does not know where these pieces fit in," Father Emilio said. "And neither do we. If they refer to entering Hell to retrieve the tablet, that's one thing. But it's possible there's another reason for them, since they did not appear in the narrative form that the vision usually takes."

"And he hasn't seen either man alone, as the protagonist appears to be in these notes," Father McConnaughey added. "Why would Sam or Dean search for the tablet alone?"

Alex ducked her head, looking down at the papers she held to hide her expression. Dean would go alone if he thought it would protect his brother, she thought. She didn't know if Sam would do the same thing.

* * *

_**Camp Atterbury, Indiana**_

Eric Baeder looked out across the cracked concrete of the parade ground, his eye following the movement of the troops as they marched across the ice-coated surface, his smile confined to the side of his face that still had movement.

The demon, Crowley, had found almost two thousand survivors. He hadn't divulged how. It didn't matter. Every one of them was being controlled by a demon and they were trained in the use of the weapons that the base had held in abundance. When the roads had cleared, it would be a matter of days to get to Kansas. The skin stretched reluctantly and with pain as he clenched his fist around the polished silver head of the walking stick he needed now. They would pay. They would pay in pain that would surpass anything they'd ever considered, he thought with a savage satisfaction.

"You look … happy," Dietrich said, walking up to him.

Baeder turned his head slowly. The muscle and tendons had been almost burned away in his neck, revealing the shape of his windpipe and the bones of his spine, and he could not move his head fast in any direction.

"Is Draxler back?" he asked, his voice cracked and hoarse.

Dietrich nodded. The oil from the bomb had spared his face. He was bald now, and always would be, and most of one ear was gone, but he still had expression and movement.

"He took two of the farm-workers, and another one from the affiliated camp in Michigan," he said. "No one who would be missed too quickly."

"Have they talked?"

It'd been Dietrich's idea. Jesse and Alison could move around the country – around the world and between the planes, for that matter – at will. Draxler had gone with them. They needed information about the hunters, the men in particular. Most small communities knew a great deal about their leaders, even if they did not know them personally.

"One has," Dietrich answered. "We have a list of names of those who will provide the best leverage. They are all in Kansas."

"And the others?"

"One died immediately," Dietrich said with an indifferent shrug. "The other doesn't seem to know much."

"Dispose of the bodies thoroughly."

"Yes."

"Who do we send in?" Baeder looked back at the broad concrete expanse between the Officer's Mess and the barracks.

"Ariana and Joaquin were the only ones not injured," Dietrich said. "Their colouring is right. They will be believed."

"And the cambion?"

"Once the children are in place, they have the pendants. They can call to them."

"I want to level their buildings, Dietrich. I want to burn them to the ground, and kill every living thing there," Baeder spat, the bitter fury shaking his frame, making the stick rattle against the ground.

Dietrich looked at him. That fury had been there since Draxler had pulled them from the burning building. He'd thought it might diminish, might ease with time but it wasn't. If anything, it was becoming more of an obsession with the fallen angel.

"We need humans, Eric," he said, his voice quiet, but firm. "Killing a population of that size would be … wasteful."

For a moment, he thought Baeder would lift the stick and take a swing at him, the rage-driven tremble through his body becoming more pronounced. Then he saw him control it, drag in a deep breath and push it back and down.

"You are right," Eric said after a moment. "Their lives will be significantly more painful than a moment's dying anyway."

Dietrich didn't respond. He turned away and walked back to the building behind them. Baeder was going to become an impediment to the plans they'd conceived with the others, he could see. It was a shame, but there was no getting around it. For the moment, he was still functioning and still useful. When they had retrieved the prophet and returned to Utah, however … he would let Draxler do it, he thought. It would please the cambion.

* * *

From the windows of the lavish office overlooking the parade ground, Crowley watched the two fallen as they conversed. The balance of power between them had shifted, he thought, Baeder's irrational anger taking him over more and more. He wondered if Dietrich would take action to keep his brother under control or if would be left up to him to see that nothing got in the way of the fruition of their plans. Even fallen angels had power and if he did have to do something about Baeder, he would have to make sure that none of the others got bent out of shape as well.

Turning from the view, he walked back to the obscenely comfortable chair behind the desk and sat down. There had always been hunters in the world. As long as there had been things to hunt, at any rate. There was something different about the two Winchesters though, he considered carefully. It couldn't have been coincidence that they were the vessels for Michael and Lucifer. Nor could it have been coincidence that despite all the devil's planning, he'd fallen to them in the end.

"Alicia!"

The door opened, framing a tall, slender blonde woman who looked enquiringly at him.

"I need everything you can find on the Winchesters. History, rumours, likes, dislikes, the brand of toothpaste they use – everything," he snapped at her.

"Of course, sir." She started to back out, and he held up a hand.

"Start with the demons who were training under Alastair," he said. "One of them was in the pit for a while. Someone will have information about that."

She nodded and drew the door closed behind her and Crowley leaned back in the chair, elbows resting on the arms, fingers steepled beneath his chin. Always know your enemy, he thought to himself. He didn't, personally, believe in coincidence.

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon**_

"Wh-what's going on?" Dean asked, a little breathlessly, the last word drowned out by the soft groan that was forced out as his back arched up convulsively.

Alex lifted her head. "You don't want to?"

He gave a strangled laugh, unable to take in a deep breath through the sensations corkscrewing through him. "No, god, no, just … why?"

She didn't answer and he lost interest in the question as she moved her thigh over him, white velvet heat sliding up and enclosing him, thought disappearing altogether as his hips jerked under her and he was everted in expanding pulses of soft pressure, surges of pleasure pulled through him, each one reaching deeper in a quickening spiral.

* * *

'Kim said it's normal," Alex said, a half hour later, picking up the conversation when the aftershocks had stopped trembling the bed.

Dean was on his back, eyes closed, his body empty and loose and incapable of movement. He couldn't think what she was talking about.

"Normal?"

"For this stage," Alex clarified a little more, looking over at the faint frown that was drawing his brows together. "In some women. Being easily aroused and having stronger reactions – stronger orgasms," she added, smiling at his expression.

He realised that she was answering his earlier question. "Oh."

The smile was unconscious and he wasn't aware of it until he heard her snort and opened an eye to look at her. "What?"

"Stop smirking," she told him, her thigh slipping over his, and her hand wandering down his side. "You have to hold your end up."

The smirk widened as he closed his eye and stretched out under her touch. "Not a problem."

"Famous last words," she said, feeling a throb deep inside at the smug self-confidence in his voice.

* * *

Dean rolled over, feeling the creak and ache of well-used muscles and tendons in his body, pressing his lips against her bare shoulder as he eased himself out of the bed without disturbing her. She hadn't been kidding, he thought as he padded barefoot through the dark rooms to the bathroom, he might well die from another session like that. Not that it would be a bad way to go.

The association came whole and bright and he froze in place as the memory returned, the last few drops plinking into the bowl unnoticed as he saw again the empty cemetery, heavy headstones settling into the earth, unkempt with overlong grass and weeds. They'd been hunting a ghoul. In Pennsylvania. In Clarksburg, Pennsylvania.

The headstone had made him laugh, the connotation that the guy buried there had died in the middle of sex. Sam had given him his patented Sam scowl. Chuck had included the a part of the inscription in his story, not enough to give him the memory, just enough to feel the familiarity of it. He shook off absently and hurried out to the living room, a shiver zipping up his spine as he flipped on the lamp by the table and searched through Chuck's notes and typewritten pages.

His fingers curled around the page he wanted and he read it again. With the memory, the layout of the cemetery became clear. He knew where the gate was.

Was it enough, he wondered? Walking to the armchair, he sat down, looking at the handwritten notes Alex had brought back from the order. One of them had gone in alone. The dog hadn't seen whoever it was … the _medallion_, he thought irritably. Of course it would hide him from Cerberus' attention, long enough to slip past and get through. He wouldn't even need a guide or a spell, he thought. In the vision the gate had been open – or open and closing – on its own. He just needed …

... time.

He couldn't drive to Pennsylvania. Even in the susvee it would take days and he couldn't leave here for that long.

He got up abruptly, shuffling the papers together and returning them to the table, walking fast to the bedroom. The medallion was in the drawer of the nightstand and he pulled it out quietly as he dragged his jeans on one-handed, tucking it into the pocket. T-shirt, long-sleeved button-through plaid … not the leather jacket … not for Hell. He reached for the Army coat and yanked it on, sitting on the edge of the bed cautiously to pull on socks and his boots. His gear bag was in the hall, he thought. Just the knife, flask and gun. Easing the front door closed behind him, he ghosted down the hall toward the stairs, taking the flight up.

The top platform of the keep was empty and chilled, frozen snow packed into the corners and glittering dully in the faint light. Pulling the jacket closer around him, Dean looked up at the overcast sky, and closed his eyes.

"Cas? Need some help, man," he said, his voice low but clear, brows drawn together as he concentrated on visualising the angel. "Pretty sure I can get the demon tablet, if you can get me to the gate."

The flutter of wings was muted in the open air, and he opened his eyes to see the angel standing in front of him.

"Which gate?" Castiel asked shortly, reaching out to grip Dean's shoulder.

* * *

_**Newport, Rhode Island**_

The sky to the west was streaked in fading lines of red and salmon and lemon, a deepening indigo reaching out from behind them as the slim, white yacht motored quietly into the harbour.

_What was left of the harbour_, Peter thought, looking around. The yachts and motor boats that had filled the basin were mostly on the bottom now, broken up and scattered across the sea bed, an unseen, underwater danger to anyone coming in. They slipped into the lee of Goat Island and looked along the darkening shoreline for any intact docks.

"There," Elena said, from the shrouds, pointing a little ahead and to the east.

The yacht was securely moored to the floating concrete jetty in ten minutes, sails furled tight and covered, fenders hanging between topsides and dock, lines coiled and stowed away. Shamsiel sighed at the stillness of the water. The _Irin's_ face was hollowed out from weeks of being able to keep little down.

In the soft light of the cabin, Penemue and Peter looked at the map spread over the table, the hunter holding a pair of dividers and measuring off a hundred miles from the scale at the lower edge. He swung the dividers across the paper.

"Sixteen hundred miles in the straightest line possible," Peter said, looking at the Qaddiysh.

"Seven weeks on foot," Baraquiel agreed.

"Less if we can find a vehicle." Elena looked at Peter.

He nodded. "The snowfall has been deep this year, across the eastern states and the Midwest. We'll need something that can handle it."

"The roads will also be bad," Elena added, her memories of the European roads still fresh in her mind.

"We'll look in the morning," Penemue said, turning to the galley. "Heaven will not aid us on this leg, for reasons of their own. We will get there as fast as we can get there."

* * *

The morning was pearl grey and dripping with moisture, the fog that had followed them to the coast swathing the dock and the trees and remaining buildings and fields and marsh in a clinging nacreous shroud as the sunshine tried to break through.

Peter walked along the snow-covered road, Penemue behind him, Elena following and the two Irin behind her. Despite the bitter temperatures the warmth of the sea close by was melting the snowfall and the sound of running water filled the quiet countryside.

They found the humvee in the underground garage of a modern, slab-built concrete block near the point. No domestic city car but the flat-sided, boxy military model, tyres and electrics intact, a full tank of fuel and a flat battery. Elena found the generator, tucked with an assortment of camping equipment and the pull-start functioned perfectly. Charging the battery would be an overnight chore, jumping it would take a few minutes.

* * *

The main bridge going south was in pieces and Peter turned north, threading through the silent and broken neighbourhoods that were largely overgrown with vegetation across the still standing Twenty-Four onto the mainland, turning west and south as they bypassed the larger populated centres.

"Can you feel it?" Shamsiel asked from the comfortably wide back seat.

In the front, next to Elena and Peter, Penemue nodded. "Yes."

He looked past the slim woman to the hunter driving. "We need to find someplace to stop, someplace we can hide. I do not know if they can see you and Elena as clearly, but we are being watched."

Peter frowned and nodded, and Elena straightened in her seat, her gaze scanning the sides of the road.

"By other angels?" she asked Penemue in an undertone.

"Yes."

"How can they see you?"

"They look for the energy we are emit," the _Irin_ said. "As we would watch them, and can see the Grigori if they haven't taken the precautions we're about to make."

"What precautions?" Peter asked, flicking a glance at him.

"You'll see," Shamsiel said from the back, his nose wrinkling up at the thought.

The narrow road wound through what once had been open fields and suburban tracts and now was a forest, the asphalt cracked and broken, humped up by the tree roots and dead grass stiffly black-tipped from frost and crushed under the thin icy slush. Peter's admiration for the car's previous owner was growing as the tyres bit into the slippery surface, and the hard, independent suspension ignored the worsening state of the road.

"There," Penemue said, gesturing to the right. Through the trees, they caught glimpses of the steel and brick building, half its roof sagging and missing sheeting, but the rest looking to be intact.

Peter turned off, following the gravelled drive.

"No, drive right inside," Penemue insisted. Peter looked up at the rafters, black against the pale, overcast sky.

"It is sound," Baraquiel agreed from the back and the hunter drove them into the building hesitantly.

All three Qaddiysh got out and drew their knives, slicing through their forearms and using the blood to make sigils on the remaining walls. Peter and Elena watched them as they drew pouches from their belts.

"We need a fire, just a small one," Shamsiel said, gesturing to the woods beyond the building. Peter nodded and walked out, collecting smaller fallen branches and twigs as Elena moved through the interior of the building and gathered an armful of the dried grasses under the open roof. The fire was small but as Baraquiel put the small bronze bowl over it, the contents heated, flaring brightly for a moment and then melting together to form a thick black paste.

The Qaddiysh stripped off their jackets and shirts, and Elena flinched as Baraquiel drove the point of the black metal blade through the dark skin of Shamsiel's back, a bright red line following the tip as he carved a symbol through the man's skin.

"This is partly Raphael's," Penemue told them, shivering in the cool air as he waited his turn. "He was – is – the Lord of the Air, and it is the properties of Air that we will draw to ourselves, transparency and reflection and misdirection."

The circle on the smooth, ebony skin was exact, straight lines, joined with smaller circles within it. Baraquiel scooped the warm, black paste onto a fingertip and smeared it over the wound, mixing it with the blood that was still flowing. Shamsiel's breath hissed in, his back contracting involuntarily as pain filled him.

"The paste will make it permanent, the scars will remain, beyond our construct's ability to heal," the black-haired _Irin_ said, paling a little under his tan as he watched his brother's careful movements.

Baraquiel stood in front of him, holding out the knife and closing his eyes. Penemue carved the sigil over his chest, working fast and ignoring the clenching of muscle as the paste worked its way into the skin.

Shamsiel took the knife when he'd finished, and repeated the sigil over his broad back.

"Why didn't the Grigori do this when they fled to the east?" Peter asked Baraquiel, helping him on with his jacket.

"Some did," Baraquiel answered. "That is why we could not see them after the Flood. But some have always put appearance before anything else, and their pride and vanity have allowed some, at least, to track them."

"You didn't know where they were?" Elena looked at him curiously.

He shook his head, long titian hair rippling back over his shoulders. "Heaven could see them." He gestured to the walls of the building, the sigils they'd drawn unseen from the inside. "Markings such as we made here are sufficient to deflect casual observation. And we were insulated in Jordan, insulated and deliberately not looking for our fallen brothers. We believed the Flood had destroyed them, believed that they were gone, because we wanted to believe it."

"Why did they align with Hell?" Peter turned to Penemue, passing him his shirt.

"The unsealing of the tablet reached out and touched everything," Penemue said stiffly, wincing as the cloth dragged over the fresh cuts. "We knew it. Heaven knew it. Michel told us that the Grigori have been active all these centuries, seeking out knowledge, practising the black arts … they are trying to find a way back."

"To Heaven?" Elena asked, astonished.

"Now that Raphael has gathered an army, he may take them back," Shamsiel told her. "He needs followers. They will make whatever bargain he wants and renege on the deal later."

"But Michael … and the Host … surely that is enough of a deterrent even to the most –" Peter said, looking from Penemue to Shamsiel.

"If Michael fights in open war against Raphael, then Heaven might fall," Penemue said tersely. "The prophecy of the Second War was not ambiguous. Michael will do everything in his power to prevent outright war."

Baraquiel turned to the truck, opening the rear door. "Come, we must get to Kansas as soon as we can, before the Grigori can move an army against them."

* * *

_**Hell**_

The cemetery didn't look exactly as he remembered, Dean thought, staggering a little to one side as Cas released him. More trees had grown up around and through the plots, and only the gravemarkers that were made of stone had survived. He pulled the medallion from his pocket, slipping it over his head as he looked around. There had been a small mausoleum, to one side. The ghouls had been living in it and the clearing Chuck had described had been just beyond it.

"Dean, are you sure about this?" the angel said from behind him, following as he walked through the tall, dead grass.

"No," Dean said shortly. "But it's the only game in town."

"The gate that Chuck described, they don't open and close on their own," Cas pressed, lengthening his stride, the trenchcoat flapping around his legs as he hurried to catch up to the hunter.

"This one does," Dean said, slowing as he passed the mausoleum. Turning his head, he felt the sigh of warm air against his cheek, caught the whiff of brimstone on it. From the corner of his eye, he saw the air shimmer in the starlight, a sheer curtain rippling in a faint zephyr, turning a little more toward it, it faded and disappeared. "It's open now."

"The guard –"

"Won't see me with this," Dean cut him off, tapping the silver disc around his neck. "I know what I'm doing, Cas."

The angel remained silent, his doubt about that written across his vessel's face.

"Hell time's different," Dean continued, ignoring the angel's lack of faith in him. "I shouldn't be long – no more than a few hours, but you have to be here when I get back."

"I will be," Cas said. "Do you know –?"

Dean turned abruptly and walked straight for the shimmer, eyes slitted as he kept his head turned to the side. He missed the rest of Castiel's sentence as he stepped into a pocket of warmth, and the world disappeared around him.

The slip between the planes was similar to the sensation of being teleported by the angel. Blackness. Silence so loud it roared in his ears. No other sensations transmitted through his nerves – no sight or smell or taste or touch – and a bending, as if he were being turned inside out. His lungs burned as the nothingness continued long past what he expected, then he was in a long valley under a thundery-looking sky, facing a broad, slow-moving river.

_Acheron_, he thought distractedly, looking along the bank as he walked closer. In the distance he could see a low boat, with a wide, curved hull. He slid into the cover of the willows that lined this side of the river as the crack of a branch sounded on the other side.

_Not kidding about the giant dog part_. The canine had three heads, and a long, slab-muscled body, high at the shoulder and sloping down to the hindquarters, its coat long and shaggy, the guard hairs lifting and twisting in a wind he couldn't feel. _Wolf. Dhole. Hyena_. It seemed all three, the centre head undoubtedly that of a wolf, long muzzle and broad forehead, the eyes set in the centre and glowing ember red. The head to the left was carried lower, the shorter muzzle that of the dhole. The head on the right had the misshapen jaw and offset eyes of a hyena, small and dark in the massive skull. All three necks converged into the broad chest and enormous shoulders.

He didn't have anything definitive to judge the height against. Perhaps six or seven feet at the join between spine and shoulder, he thought. Each neck was adorned by a collar, glittering slightly in the carnelian light.

"I don't care what happens to the souls," a roughened voice came from the river, and Dean turned his head fractionally to watch the boat coming closer over the oily, black water. "Just make sure you deliver anyone you see to this gate."

British accent. Short, receding black hair. Dark eyes.

_Crowley_. Dean's attention sharpened as he recognised the demon. The boat was handled by a man – of sorts, Dean reconsidered – manoeuvring the craft to the bank skilfully with a long, single scull. He was tall and broad through the chest and shoulders, his skin tinted grey, or silver, his hair a wild red mane that spilled over shoulders and back.

The demon stepped onto the shore and turned back to look at him. "No one gets through here without meeting the hound, understand?"

Charon nodded, pushing the prow of the boat off the shore and digging the scull into the water, the boat spinning on its axis and moving downstream again. Charon's face turned to the bank where Dean was hiding, the craggy, broken features partially hidden by a tangle of red beard, the flat silver eyes passing over him without changing expression. He let out a soft exhale as the boat moved away, looking back at the other side of the river.

All three heads of the dog were lowered now, ears pricked forward as they listened to their master. Crowley's voice was too low for him to overhear the instructions to the hound, but he had little doubt that it followed the gist of the instructions to the ferryman. He wondered if the demon was normally this paranoid, or if what'd happened with the Grigori had gotten back to him.

On this side of the river, trees and grass were living, the willows he was crouched under trailing long, delicately green fronds into the water. On the other side, however, nothing was alive bar the hound and the demon that he could see. No tree or plant of any description put its roots into the greyish-black soil that ran up from the river bank to the towering rock walls behind it. Puffs and tendrils of smoke rose from that soil further up river, curling into the unmoving air, grey edged with yellow, and added to the miasma of the low cloud overhead. He thought it was a pretty safe bet that the river itself was poisonous on the other side, despite the mythology about it. Crowley had been fairly careful not to allow the water to touch his meatsuit's polished black shoes.

Which left him with a single option. A not very appealing option.

The demon disappeared and the dog turned around, padding back through the rising vapours until it disappeared. He studied the rock wall carefully, taking note of the odd protrusions and colours that would mark it as a gate and he stood slowly, heading down the river's edge in the direction the ferryman had gone.

The river followed close to the curving ramparts of the valley wall. River Acheron marks one of the borders of Hell, Bobby'd said, years ago when they'd been trying to find a way out of the deal. The Styx flowed from it, a tributary leading to another entrance to the earthly plane. Charon plied the length of the rivers that flowed through the underworld, appearing and disappearing as needed, apparently.

He found the small stone quay a few hundred yards down river. Four people stood there, three men and a woman, none of them speaking as they stared at the dark gleam of the river's current.

Looking around, Dean realised that mist shrouded this side as well. Not the poisonous fumes of the pit, rising through the soil, but an ordinary mist, thicker and thinner as a vagrant breeze stirred it. A curtain between this antechamber and the real world, he wondered. Or a means of isolating the souls who'd been sent here? He looked back at the river as the boat bumped alongside the stone blocks, lengthening his stride to join the hellbound souls as they climbed listlessly on board.

The boatman stood in the stern, his face impassive, his hand held out. One by one, the men and woman dropped a silver coin into it, moving to the bow to take their seats. Dean crowded close to the last man, turning to follow him as his coin jingled against the others and stopping as the huge hand of Charon closed around his shoulder.

He looked up at the craggy face, eyes widening as he realised the boatman was focussing _on_ him. "You can see me?"

Charon nodded, and thrust his open palm toward him, the coins on it painted with the red light.

"Uh …," Dean said, digging into his pockets for change. He pulled out the car keys, and a couple of tarnished pennies, looking back at the boatman's face. Charon shook his head, his gaze moving to the man's chest.

The medallion lay there, Dean knew, a silver disc reflecting the reddened sky in the same way the coins were. He shook his head. He needed that. He dug his hands into the pockets of his jacket, feeling through them in the futile hope that he hadn't cleaned them out anytime in the last three years. His fingers felt the small shape and he pulled it out. The coin was a half dollar, a 1949 Franklin his father had given him in 2003. He looked at it for a long moment, then dropped it into Charon's hand. The boatman closed his fingers around the coins, the flat, silvery gaze closing. Then he nodded and Dean breathed a sigh of relief, taking a seat behind the man he'd followed on board.

The boat drifted out into the current and began to move. It took less than a minute to reach the far shore, in front of the gate where he'd seen the dog and the demon. The prow nudged the black shore and the woman and men climbed out, Dean getting to his feet to follow them. He froze as the hand once again gripped his shoulder, the boatman's fingers like steel, cold and crushing the muscle to the bone beneath.

"Go between them," Charon rumbled softly. "Not at the end or the beginning."

Dean nodded mutely and the fingers released him. He hurried to the others, slipping in between the first man and the woman as Cerberus padded out of the mists, ropey, yellow saliva dripping from the open jaws.

Dean reached up and slid the medallion under his shirt, feeling the metal warm instantly against his skin. _Make or break_, he thought, his mouth drying out as the dog looked at him, three sets of blood-red eyes seemingly fixed on his face. The rock wall split apart ahead of the first man, grating over the ground, heat and the stench of sulphur blasting out over them. The dog's eyes moved to the man behind him, and he followed the woman into the slit of darkness, the sweat rolling down his face owing nothing to the furnace-like heat in the mountain.

As soon as they had entered the rock tunnel, the souls ahead and behind him vanished and he stopped, looking around reflexively. He could almost hear a sound at the edge of his senses, a scraping, chittering sound, like claws over stone. Could almost see the glimmers of light reflecting from something that wasn't within the range of his eye sight. Could almost smell the bitter acid smell of leathern skin and blood that wasn't really blood.

Almost. But not quite.

The memories flooded back, vast nets made of tightly tensioned wire and littered with hooks and chains; open areas of sand and rock and the snap of bone and screams and –

He looked around the dim tunnel. The light wasn't actually light, he knew. He could see shapes but they weren't really there. He could hear sounds, but they weren't there either.

_In my fear, I forgot who I was, forgot what I had come here for, forgot everything I'd known. And I wandered, lost and disoriented, for an unknown length of time._

Felix had pulled the account of the soldier who'd gotten into – and out of – Hell. Dean leaned against the rock and forced himself to focus, to remember what he needed to remember, to keep every other thought away. He needed a key to get back here. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out the Colt automatic. It was useless in here, but he'd carried it since he was twenty-five, and it would guide him back. He tucked the gun into a crevice in the wall, the ivory of the grip washed to a gruesome pink in the not-light.

_The tunnels were a maze, shifting as I walked down them. I beat my hands against the walls until they were bloody and still I would find myself back in the same passages, time after time. Until I remembered._

He'd never seen the tablet. Chuck hadn't described it too well either. Stone. Not large. Tapered edges. Engraved with a language that was not recognisable. His eyes screwed shut in frustration.

_I saw the sword in my mind, saw it shining in a pillar of light, and I felt the plane move around me, the endless corridors filled with wind become straight and still, the enormous chambers stop fixed in their locations. And I felt the sword, felt its presence as I walked forward, my eyes closed and its image clear in my head. And reaching out, my fingers found the hilt of it and I drew it to me._

He thought of everything he knew about it, everything he'd read, everything he'd been told. The imagination that had cursed and saved him throughout his life filled in the details from those memories, and he saw it finally, sitting in a pool of lamplight on a desk. He took a step forward and felt the vertiginous shift in the floor, the walls, the structure that surrounded him, felt the wrench in the spaces in his skull and the hollows of his organs, felt the heat disappear, the air still, the silence drop over him.

Dean reached out and felt the slightly oily surface of the stone beneath his fingertips, rough where the symbols had been carved. He opened his eyes as his hand closed around it, feeling an odd, doubling sensation beneath his eyes, the symbols blurring for a moment and moving across the surface of the smoothed rock. Then his vision returned to normal and he picked it up, wrapping it in a layer of cloth and settling it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

Then he looked around. He was in a room, perhaps twenty-five by thirty feet, panelled in old, darkly stained timber, a small fire blazing in a Victorian fireplace on the other side of the ornately engraved and polished black desk in front of him. Richly coloured carpet covered the floor and glass-fronted bookcases lined two of the long walls. There were no windows, but otherwise it looked like a … gentleman's study.

_No accounting for taste_, he told himself sourly, turning around. He had to get back to the gate.

The gun was easy to visualise. He knew every curved line chased onto the polished chrome barrel, every seam in the ivory worn to its shape by his hand, every nick in the metal and every part, moving or otherwise. Closing his eyes, he saw the angle of it in the crevice and the wrenching sensation rose up around him, spinning without moving, the accursed plane changing itself around him and taking him back without him needing to take a step. When his stomach stop rolling, he opened his eyes, smiling a little as he reached out for the gun in front of him.

_Not so hard_, he thought smugly. Just the rock door, the river and the gate and Cas there to take them both home. He glanced at his watch, seeing the hands stopped at the precise time he'd entered the gate. Not so great, but it wouldn't matter that much. He couldn't been more than a couple of hours.

He tucked the gun back into the pocket of his jacket, fingers brushing over the tablet at the same time as he stepped forward to the rock wall and pushed.

Nothing happened.

He pushed again, both hands now, and the wall remained a wall, immovable and unchanged. Sliding his palms over the surface, he felt for the edges, moving to the left and right as far as the short tunnel allowed. It was smooth. Seamless.

Solid.

The way in was not, apparently, the way out.


	11. Chapter 11 Oaths, Keys and Bonds

**Chapter 11 Oaths, Keys and Bonds**

* * *

_**Hell**_

Dean stared at the wall in frustration, ignoring the creeping thread of panic that lay underneath. There was no sign that a door had ever been here.

_Do not lose it_, he told himself, Ellen's brief accounts of mortals becoming lost in Hell rising in his mind like bloated and unwelcome corpses. _There'll be a way, there's always a way_. He sucked in a deep breath and turned back to the pulsing corridor behind him, reviewing the possibilities he could see. He'd have to leave the gun here again, he realised. He needed a way to get back here. This was the gate that led back to Clarksburg, where the angel was waiting.

Even if he could find another way back to the Acheron, he thought uneasily, he had no more silver to pay the ferryman to cross the river and get back to the open gate. Back to his ride home. _Worry about that when you're out_, he pushed the thoughts aside, and pulled the gun from his pocket, tucking it back into the crevice. Right now, he needed a way out of here.

Memories pushed against him, triggered and strengthened by the almost-familiarity of everything around him. None of his memories of Hell would help him now and he shoved back at them. The power of many of the worst memories had been diminished, lessened somehow in their telling, in the reliving of them. In the understanding of what had happened and why and knowing she didn't see a monster when she looked at him. Some still had teeth.

He'd look around, he thought firmly. Look around and see what he could find. _Should've fucking well known it'd been too damned easy_, a stray thought filtered through and his face twisted in acknowledgement. Nothing was ever that easy.

The corridor ran both ways, bending a few hundred yards from the tunnel in which he stood. Neither direction looked more promising than the other. He shrugged inwardly and turned right, moving cautiously along the rough stone floor. In his peripheral vision, he caught movement, the rock walls blank and solid when he turned his head, the movement resuming when he looked ahead. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was walking through the souls imprisoned here, through the demons goading and torturing them, but he couldn't see them directly, could only feel the weight of anguish and excruciating torment that filled the air of the place in a noxious, invisible fog. He wondered irrelevantly what that might do to him, breathing it in.

When he reached the bend, he saw the corridor continue, exactly the same as the stretch he'd just walked through, another bend perhaps three hundred yards further. There were no breaks in the walls, no doors, just the rough rock floor, the unevenly hewn walls, the pulsing non-light that was bleeding in behind his eyes and beginning to throb in his head. _This is bullshit_, he thought uneasily. He had the distinct feeling that beyond the next bend it would be the same, and on and on, as he walked through a place that wasn't real. That changed as it sensed what it was he feared.

Turning around, he started back, lengthening his stride a little. If the other end of the corridor was the same, he'd … he wasn't sure what he'd do, he realised. His options were running out fast.

He stopped abruptly a few minutes later, realising belatedly that he should've been at the tunnel mouth by now. The corridor stretched ahead and behind him, the bend a couple of hundred yards ahead, and he swore softly under his breath as it sank in that he was somewhere else entirely in the levels.

_The gun._

Closing his eyes, he visualised it, holding it clear and sharp in his mind's eye and he felt the swirling vertigo as the plane shifted around him. He opened his eyes to find himself standing in front of the short black tunnel, the gun wedged discreetly in a crevice in the rock in front of him, his heart hammering against his ribs.

What the fuck was he going to do now?

An infuriated shriek shattered his thoughts, the noise electrifying his nerves, making him jump and swing around. Voices. Foot steps, boots, more than a couple. The rattle of metal on metal. He looked up the corridor and backed fast into the tunnel, as shadows leapt on the walls of the bend to the left.

"More fucking trouble than she's worth," a guttural voice said, getting closer.

"'e wants 'er trussed an' ready," a second, higher voice replied. "Figures she knows where it all is, bein' the Devil's whore an' all."

Pressing hard back against the rock, Dean watched two men with black eyes walk by, a struggling woman held tightly between them, her mouth clamped shut with one meaty hand of the larger.

"Mothering –!" the larger man swore and whipped his hand away, staring at the blood flowing from the palm.

"I'm gonna fucking rea–" The woman shrieked at them before the other man slapped his hand over her mouth.

In the darkness of the tunnel, Dean frowned as something about the voice, or the delivery, tweaked at a memory.

There was a muffled curse and a thump and he eased one eye past the wall to see the corridor. The woman was standing now, her feet and both hands trapped in the rock wall, her face twisted with rage as she spat again at her captors.

"Poxie, bleedin' tart," the smaller man said, wiping the saliva from his cheek and backhanding her with casual force, her head snapping back into the wall behind it.

"Come on, she's going nowhere now," the deep-voiced man said, stepping back out of her range and glowering at her.

They walked down the corridor in the other direction, not looking back as the woman hurled a string of inventive and detailed curses after them.

Dean stepped out into the corridor and walked cautiously closer to her. She was somewhere around five six, he thought, thin and pale-skinned, dark, stringy hair hanging around her face and dark, finely arched brows over glaring dark brown eyes.

She swung her head back to him and he started before realising she wasn't looking at him. The medallion, still doing its job, he thought. There was something familiar about her. Something that triggered a desire to pull out his knife and stab her.

On the other hand, he thought, dry-swallowing as he checked the length of the corridor in both directions again, she was obviously a prisoner of Crowley's and there was an outside chance she might know something that he could use. He lifted his hand, pulling the medallion from under his t-shirt and lifting the thin, silver chain over his head.

He watched as her eyes widened dramatically in front of him, her mouth dropping open as he became visible to her.

"Dean Winchester!" she said, the surprise vanishing as a slow smile curved her mouth. "Damn, that's some trick."

"Do I know you?"

The smile widened. "Oh yeah, Deano, you know me. And Sammy, well, he knows me inside and out." She glanced behind him. "He here too?"

_Meg_. The thought coalesced instantly and his hand moved to the hilt of the knife before he'd registered what he wanted to do, remembering the dark-haired vessel telling Bobby to kill him. She saw the reach and shook her head.

"Go ahead," she said dryly. "Beats what's waiting for me anyway."

He hesitated and looked at where her hands and feet were trapped in the rock. "You make more enemies, Meg?"

"A lot more," she agreed readily. "What are you doing here?"

He ignored that, looking back at her. "What's Crowley want with you?"

She shrugged, glancing away. "He thinks I know where some of Lucifer's toys are hidden."

"And do you?"

"I might," she said, looking back at him. "What I'm more interested in is why you're standing there, wondering if you can safely get me out of the rock without me killing or abandoning you, and making conversation, Dean?"

He scowled at her all-too-accurate insight into his thoughts. "If I can get you out of that, do you know how to open a door back to the river?"

For a moment he thought she was going to smile, and if she did, he knew he was going to hit her. But she didn't. The dark eyes narrowed at him thoughtfully.

"When you came in here, didn't you have a plan for getting out?" she asked him slyly and he turned away, clamping down on a surge of frustrated anger. She couldn't help but twist the knife, he thought caustically.

"You can stay there and rot for all I care," he said, struggling to evince an indifference he wasn't feeling.

"I can get you out," she told him, the humour gone from her voice. He turned back to her warily. "But it's an even trade, Dean. We go together."

"No." He folded his arms and stared at her. "No way."

"Then have fun finding a way out," she said, tipping her head back and closing her eyes.

_Goddamned_ demons. The sooner he closed the fucking gates, the better off they'd all be. He stared at the floor, wondering if there was any way he'd be able to welsh on the deal. He didn't think she'd leave him an opening for it, once she was free.

Meg heard his deep exhale and smiled inwardly. This would make things so much easier, she thought.

"Alright," he gave in abruptly. "How do I get you out?"

"Get your knife out," she told him. "Need your blood and mine."

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Sam walked into the big kitchen, rubbing his eyes. His sleep had been filled with nightmares and he was having trouble shaking them off today, the growing sense of events careening out of control around them getting stronger, even in the daylight hours.

He stopped as he saw Adam Milligan standing by the coffee pot. The young man had been assigned to the keep's garrison after the debacle in Amarillo and he hadn't seen him since then. Hadn't wanted to see him, his memory of Adam's slack face in the confusion of the attack on Dean still powerful.

Adam turned and ducked his head as he saw Sam, swallowing the rest of his coffee in two big gulps and almost dropping the mug into the sink behind him.

"Sorry," he mumbled, walking around the other side of the island bench with his head down as he hurried to the door. "I'll get out of your way."

"Adam."

Dean hadn't been that bothered by what Adam had done, Sam thought. But then, he'd never really considered Adam to be family. It'd been his idea that their half-brother was closer to them than any of the other young trainees. It'd been his hope that in Adam, Dean would have someone else to back him up. That realisation filtered through painfully. He knew why he'd wanted that. Knew he was still afraid of failing his older brother. But that wasn't Adam's fault. That'd been an expectation he'd never even articulated to the younger man. And if it'd been anyone else, standing there when the vampires had come through, he would've written it off as just lack of experience and nerves. It was because he was blood that he'd expected more from him.

Adam hesitated, looking at him nervously.

"I'm sorry about the reassignment," Sam said, gesturing vaguely to the patches on the boy's jacket sleeves. "I – I overreacted when Dean was taken."

Adam shook his head. "No, I'm not a hunter," he said. "This is actually better."

Sam looked quizzically at him, unsure if that was the truth or a way to end the conversation. He sighed. "I froze plenty of times with my brother and father on hunts," he said slowly.

Looking away, Adam shrugged slightly. "Not when one of them was in danger, I'm guessing."

Memories slid into Sam's mind, memories he'd have rather left buried. Leaving Dean to run away, not even thinking about the repercussions or the way his brother would feel. Losing him in a haunted prison. Leaving them both again to go to Stanford. He'd hurt his brother worse than Adam ever could've of dreamed of, he thought tiredly.

"Adam, I've done worse," he told him quietly. "A lot worse. That's probably why I took it out on you."

For a moment, Adam considered that in silence. It might've been true, he thought. He couldn't see that it mattered particularly now.

"Me and Dean, we've lost a lot of people. Too many," Sam added, feeling his way through what he suddenly needed to say. "If you – I – I'd like the chance to get to know my brother."

"I appreciate that, I do," Adam said, looking around the room. "But, you know, with all that's gone on, I have to wonder if that's a good idea."

"Wouldn't hurt to try it out, would it?" Sam asked, leaning back against the counter.

"You and Dean, you're something special here." Adam turned to face him, meeting his brother's eyes. "People know you, know who you are, hold you in regard, Sam."

"That's not –"

"Lemme finish, okay?" the younger man said, taking in a breath. "No one here gives a rat's about me. I'm a blow-in who happens to be related to the man who killed the devil. That's … that's okay, I can deal with that," he said quickly to forestall the argument he could see in Sam's expression. "I didn't realise it at the time, but that idea of me came with a lotta expectations. And I screwed them all up in Texas. Now, I'm just like everyone else – no one pays much attention to who I am, or what I do. And I – I think I'm comfortable with that."

Sam looked at him, nodding. "That's fair, I get that," he said understandingly. "And I can see why that's a good thing, Adam. But you're still my brother. That's not going to change."

Adam looked away uncomfortably.

"You know what our father's biggest problem was?" Sam said suddenly.

Adam sighed. "No."

"He really loved us, all of us," Sam said. "He made some fucking horrible mistakes, but he could've cut us all loose, put us into the system, not given your mom his number … he could've focussed his life on revenge and forgotten about us. He didn't. He kept me and Dean with him because he was afraid of what would happen to us if he didn't. He did his best to keep you and your mom clear of what he did, but he couldn't not see you at all." He shrugged at the young man's neutral expression. "He did the best he could."

Adam looked at him. "I know he did, Sam. The thing is, he couldn't have done worse if he'd stayed with Mom, if he'd let us grow up together. Could he?"

* * *

Dawn came with a deep chill and Sam pulled his jacket tightly around himself as he got out of the pickup and trudged through the refrozen snow up to the keep steps. Chuck's third vision in as many days and Anson couldn't find his brother anywhere. He needed to be back at the library, working on it, not running around looking for Dean.

Climbing the stairs to the apartment, he thought of what Adam had said. What would their life have been like if John'd stayed with Kate, he wondered, smiling a little derisively at himself at the what-if scenario. If he and Dean had grown up with Adam. If they'd been a family. He'd been seven when Adam had been born. Would he have still wanted so desperately to get out? Would Dean have been so devastated about that, with another brother to protect and look after?

He shook his head. John Winchester would never've put any of them in such a risky position, staying in one place, living an ordinary life. He knew that his father had known almost from the beginning about the demon and what it'd done to him, what Mary had done. Jim's journal had detailed the painful saga of their lives and their father's choices and lack of choice clearly.

Knocking on the door, he looked down at his watch. If Dean was sleeping and Anson just hadn't knocked hard enough –

Alex opened the door, the soft knit robe covering her from neck to ankle as she peered sleepily up at him. "Sam, what's wrong?"

"Dean here, Alex?" he asked, looking over her head down the hall.

"No," she said, stepping back. "I don't know when he left … do you want to come in?"

He hesitated then nodded, walking past her to the living room, looking back over his shoulder as she closed the door and followed him. "He didn't say anything?"

"No," Alex said, moving past him as he stopped near the sofa and going on into the small kitchen. "We were looking over the handwritten notes last night, and we went to bed late. He didn't leave a note – I thought he'd just gone over to the order."

"He's not there," Sam said distractedly, walking to the table by the armchair and looking down at the pile of notes on it. The top page detailed the cemetery that held the gate. Under it, was one of the handwritten pages. Under that, he saw as he lifted the pages aside, a glossy printout of a fuzzy black and white image. After a moment he picked out the subjects, his breath catching slightly.

"He might've gone to talk to Jackson," Alex said from the kitchen. "They've almost finished the fortifications to the farmhouses now, and I know he and Riley wanted to ask Dean about getting the trainees over to do the wardings."

Sam put the picture down and looked again at the other two pages. "No, I checked with the farms before I came out."

"What's happened?" Alex asked him as she carried out two cups of black coffee, handing him one.

Dean had been very, very specific about the information flow to Alex and Sam shrugged very lightly. "Chuck had another vision."

She frowned as she sipped the coffee. "That was quick. Does it relate to the army?"

"No," Sam said, his eyes skimming over the page describing the cemetery again. "No, this one doesn't seem to be related to anything else."

"What was it about?"

"It's – it's not really about anything," Sam said, drinking his coffee distractedly as something in the account of the cemetery twitched at the back of his mind. "It's like the notes, just fragmentary pieces of something we can't piece together."

"Did you bring it with you?" Alex asked. Sam nodded, putting down his cup and the papers and pulling out a thin folded sheaf of papers. He handed them to her and picked up the typed page again.

"Did Dean say anything to you about this description of the cemetery?" he asked Alex. She looked up from the pages and shook her head.

"No," she said, her eyes narrowing a little as she took in his expression. "Is there something to it?"

"I don't know," Sam said, exhaling as he sat down in the armchair. "Something about it seems … I wouldn't say familiar because it's not that strong a feeling, but there's something there."

"You two've seen a lot of action in cemeteries," Alex said, watching him. "Maybe it's similar to one you've been in?"

"Maybe."

She looked back at the scrawled handwriting on the pages she held. Sam was right, she thought, deciphering the carelessly written words. It was fragmentary.

_The hill. The hill was bleak and bare. The hill was steep. It was steep and strewn with rocks. The shots were loud. LOUD! _

She frowned at the emphasis. "How did Chuck seem after this?"

"Agitated," Sam answered her, looking up. "He said he couldn't see what was happening, only flashes of images and sounds. He said it's never come to him that way before," Sam added, his brow creasing up as he tried to remember exactly what Chuck had said when he'd handed the notes over. "Usually, it's like he's standing apart, just an observer. This time, he said it was like he was in the middle of it."

_The laughter was shrill and hoarse, a crow's cry against the louring sky. Dean ran, dropping to his knees and the whole world seemed to hold its breath in the silence that filled the narrow ravine. _

_The demon's rage filled the room, filled the tunnels and the caverns and the endless abyss._ Crowley's rage, she wondered absently? _The necromancer turned and he shrank back from the visage that had been hidden. One side of the man's face was … melted. There was no other way to describe it. As if it were tallow and someone had held a candle too close, the skin had dripped and sagged, the shiny, hairless brow almost hiding the empty eye-socket. One side of his mouth lifted, the other remaining stubbornly immovable and an unholy glee filled the remaining pale eye at the prospect waiting._

"This seems out of order," Alex said slowly. "When Maggie took out the Grigori's house in Taos, is it possible they were burned but not killed?"

Sam felt the ghost of the memory he was looking for come closer then fade away again. He looked over to her, replaying her question to himself.

"Sure, I guess," he said. "Why?"

"The necromancer – didn't Jerome or Jasper say that the Grigori had been experimenting with black magic in World War II?" she asked, looking back at the paragraph that was nagging at her. "He could be referring to one of them as a necromancer?"

Sam leaned forward curiously. "Okay."

"If they escaped the bomb, but were burned, it might explain this description," she continued slowly. "I don't know why, I just feel like the bit about the hill and the laughter comes after this description."

"So Crowley went and got the Grigori from New Mexico, maybe, and took them somewhere else? There's no army mentioned in those notes."

"Maybe because this bit happens before … or after … the army attacks," Alex speculated. "The notes he wrote before were about Hell, they seemed to be out of line with the linear narrative of the rest of the visions."

"We won't be able to figure it out unless we get some kind of timeline," Sam said, getting up and walking to the sofa and sitting down beside her to read the page again. "What about the next bit?"

_The clearing shone with the purest white light, emanating from the man who stood to one side, the great wings folded behind him proclaiming him more than man, more than mortal. Dean and Sam approached him warily, stopping as the light brightened and faded, the bright moonlight seeming dim after the heavenly incandescence._

Alex stared at the page. "That's not Cas, is it?"

"Doesn't sound like Cas, not with wings," Sam agreed uneasily. It sounded more like an arc. Did Michael want a pow-wow with Dean? He couldn't imagine a reason for the archangel to meet with them. Not now, at least.

Leaning back against the sofa, he tried to make the pieces fit. Beside him, Alex rubbed her fingertips slowly over her temple, unaware of the gesture, as she attempted the same thing.

"It doesn't follow the first visions," she said after a few minutes of silence.

"It doesn't follow the last flashes he had of Hell either," Sam added, closing his eyes. "And why are these pieces coming out of whack with the rest?"

"Maybe someone's changing things – Cas told Dean that the lines of destiny could not be changed, when he went back to Lawrence before he was born – but he also said that Dean's been changing the lines ever since –" she cut herself off abruptly, looking back at the pages. Sam smiled ruefully.

"Ever since I said 'yes' to Lucifer," he finished for her gently. "You don't have to tip-toe around it, Alex, I know what I did."

"If Dean is changing things around, then Chuck would be playing a kind of a catch up, wouldn't he?" she asked tentatively. "Trying to see far enough ahead when each line could be changed at any moment?"

"But only Dean's changing –" Sam stopped suddenly as at least some pieces fell together in front of him. "He found the fucking gate."

Alex's head snapped around to look at him. "No, he would've told you, told me, told someone if he was going to try to get the tablet."

"No, he wouldn't," Sam snarled, shifting forward in his seat and looking at the pages. "He figured out the gate's location – car's still here, so I'm guessing he called Cas."

Alex drew in a breath as she looked back down at the pages. "If he's got the tablet somehow – then the demon's rage is explained. And possibly that's why you both go to see the archangel?"

Sam didn't hear her, getting to his feet, fury burning in his veins. He should've known, he thought. Dean would never've let him go along on a gig like that, not into Hell.

"He had the medallion, the one Death gave him," he said, extrapolating as he paced the room. "Probably figured he could sneak past Cerberus with it."

"He'd still need a way to open the gate, to get in – and back out," Alex said, following his thoughts.

"Did he look at the all the texts that Bobby's been going through?"

She shook her head. "No, he was focussing on the location."

"Idiot!"

* * *

_**Hell**_

"That feels better," Meg said, walking cautiously across the corridor and turning back to him. "Much oblige."

"Open the door," he snapped back at her, pulling a cleanish bandana from his jacket and wrapping it around it the cut on the back of his arm.

"Not so fast," Meg tutted at him.

"I swear if you even think of –" Dean snarled, one long stride taking him across to her and his fists bunching up in the front of her jacket.

"Dean, settle down," Meg said, feeling her feet lifting from the floor. "Crowley has the Colt."

The words penetrated and his fingers relaxed involuntarily, slipping from her as he tried to work out if she was telling the truth or it was just another diversion.

"Where?"

"In the rooms he uses for an office, on the highest levels," she said. "Same place you found that, I'm guessing."

She gestured at his jacket and his eyes narrowed. "How do you know what I found?"

"Dean, please," she said, shrugging and straightening her coat. "You've walked deliberately into Hell and it wasn't to rescue anyone. Crowley's had the tablet for just shy of six months now, of course you'd be looking for it."

"What makes you think we'd even know about it?"

"Are you fishing for a compliment?" she asked drolly, looking at him from under her lashes. "Not even you're that dumb."

"Is Crowley looking for the others?" he asked, ignoring the jibe.

"Yep," she said briskly. "We can have this conversation on the way, can't we?"

"I didn't take note of anything else in that office," he said, stepping back as she stepped toward him.

"But you remember the Colt, right?" she asked, taking another step toward him. "Every detail of it, I'll bet. And I didn't get that good a look at it, so sack up and hold me close."

She stepped up to him, sliding her arms under his jacket and curling them around him, laughing a little against him as she felt him tense. "Just see the Colt, Dean."

Closing his eyes he dragged the memory of the long-barrelled revolver into conscious recall. Black metal, the cylinder had been worn, smooth and the pentagram had been crudely carved into the grip, as if it'd been done in a rush.

Hell swayed and swung around them and he felt Meg's arms tighten around his ribs, felt her ribcage rise sharply as she pulled in a deeper breath.

"Get off me," he growled when he opened his eyes, the panelled room as he'd left it however long before. He pushed Meg aside and walked to the desk. "Where is it?"

"Last time I was here, it was sitting on the desk," Meg said, looking around. "But Crowley's so into the lord of the manor routine, he could've stashed it anywhere in here." She walked to the wall where two large paintings were hanging, a bucolic green landscape that bore no resemblance to anywhere in the United States, and a darkly painted portrait of a plain woman sitting in a single beam of light.

Dean walked around the desk, pulling open the drawers, feeling at trickle of sweat trace its way down his neck and into his collar.

"How come Crowley made king when Lucifer died?" he asked, more to divert his thoughts than an actual interest.

Meg paused as she lifted the bottom corner of the landscape. "That's a good question," she said sourly, dropping the corner and moving onto the next. "Rumour has it he found a spell to imprison the Fallen and just staged a coup d'etat, taking over before anyone else had time to round up support."

"Politics in hell," he muttered to himself, crouching beside a locked cupboard door and pulling out his picks.

Meg glanced over at him and smiled. "Yeah, even here."

The lock clicked and he opened the door, peering inside. He pulled out a heavy wooden box and got to his feet, setting it on the desk. It was also locked.

"He must've found the Throne though," Meg continued, lowering the corner of the portrait and moving to the bookshelves.

"The Throne?" Dean asked distractedly. The wrench kept slipping and he pulled out the tools, wiping his palms on his jeans and trying again.

"Lucifer's Throne," Meg clarified, opening the first glass-paned door and pulling the books out of the shelves by the handful. "He made it when he was cast down. It contained all his memories, all his knowledge about the powers of the souls." She looked over her shoulder at him. "He was an angel, you know. Hell works the same way as Heaven so far as the power goes. And the Throne is what made the passing of the rule of Hell possible, especially to a crossroads demon."

"Crowley's a crossroads demon?" That explained the red eyes, he thought, easing the pick over the last pin. There was a soft click and the lock gave up.

"He was," Meg said, walking to the desk to look at the box. "He was in charge of the deals, passing the contracts to Lilith until Sammy took her out, then to Lucifer."

The Colt lay on the black velvet interior of the box, twenty-seven bullets in a small box nestled under the barrel.

"Good, let's go," she said to him as he picked it up. "You can kill Crowley with that. King or not, he's just a human-born demon."

Tucking the gun through his belt at his lower back, he put the box of ammunition into his pocket.

"Back to the gate," Meg said quickly, stepping close as he came around the desk and wrapping her arms around him. "Get a move on, I gotta bad feeling."

_The automatic in the crevice. Ivory grips. Chased barrel. Thirteen in the mag and one in the chamber_. Closing his eyes, the gun materialised behind the closed lids and he rocked into Meg as the room spun around them and disappeared.

* * *

_**Chappaqua, New York**_

Peter swore as the road dead-ended in a high snow-covered bank. Elena looked through the windshield, a glint of metal catching her attention to one side. She pointed at it and Peter slammed the vehicle into reverse, the back swinging as he hit the accelerator. Behind them, two trees crashed down onto the road, blocking it completely and he hit the brake as the animals came out of the woods to either side.

"Skinwalkers?" Peter looked out the window, counting them.

Elena nodded. "_Cousine de loup-garou_, yes, I think so too."

In the back, Shamsiel looked at the smooth stretch of snow to the right of the car. "Peter, turn around, we can get down there."

Peter twisted in the driver's seat and nodded abruptly. He hit the accelerator, hearing the engine revs climb and swung the wheel as he yanked on the hand-brake, the rear end swinging wide with a high rooster-tail of snow, two of the dogs disappearing under the rear wheels, their high yelps silenced as the heavy vehicle humped over them and he aimed for the bank.

"The building!" Baraquiel gestured furiously at the square stone shape just visible through the trees, raising his voice over the baying of the pack following them. Winding down her window, Elena cocked the assault rifle and slid halfway out, holding on and firing one-handed as they bounced down the rough ground and over the ditch.

"Don't waste your ammo," Peter yelled at her, hearing the chatter of the gun. She waited for the car to regain a smoother surface and aimed more carefully, three dogs disappearing as Peter swung across the unmarked white snow to the entrance.

He pulled up in front of the wide metal roller door and Elena scrambled out of the window, dropping to the snow and backing toward the door, Penemue following her, keeping out of her line of fire and unlocking the simple bars, pushing it aside into the building.

Driving inside, Peter watched the mirrors, seeing the muzzle flash of the rifle a fraction before he heard the sharp clatter. He stopped the car and grabbed his gun as he swung out of the driver's door, running and firing through the open doorway as Elena backed in and the skinwalkers stopped a hundred yards from the building.

Penemue and Baraquiel pulled the door closed and dropped the iron pins into the sleeves, locking them in. The sudden banging on the postern door on the other side of the building made them all jump and Shamsiel ran for the door, Elena right behind him as they heard the cracked voice from outside.

"Help! Please, help me!"

Elena nodded at the _Irin_ and he unlocked the door, opening it a short way, his boot jammed under the inside edge as he looked out. On the other side, a tall, thin man stood, shivering in the cold, his eyes wide with fear.

"They've taken my family, please, please, help me," he begged them. His clothes were threadbare and torn, the boots on his feet loose and without lacing. Elena chewed on the corner of her lip as she heard the baying approaching the building and the man's head snapped around to stare at the corner. "_Please_, don't let them get me!"

"In," she said, and Shamsiel reached out, his hand closing around the man's arm and dragging him in, as Elena levelled the barrel at him. The _Irin_ shouldered the door shut and ran the bolts home, top, bottom and middle, turning to walk behind the man as he crabbed sideways across the floor toward the vehicle, trying to look everywhere at once.

"Thank you," he said fervently to Elena and Shamsiel, nodding to the other men as they approached. "Thank you, thank you."

Peter moved to the car, leaning in across the passenger seat to the small bag he kept under the glove box. He pulled it out, unzipping it as the man stopped beside the quarter panel, Elena still holding the rifle on him.

"What happened?" Baraquiel asked quietly. The man turned to him, his hands spread out helplessly.

"There were a few of us, a few weeks ago," he said, looking from Baraquiel to Penemue, to Shamsiel and Elena. "We were in Austin. There was a big sandstorm. Then we started heading north, looking for other people, looking for food. We stopped here, and there were still a few of us left, after – after everything," he stopped speaking, gulping in a breath, shaking his head. "Then the dogs came. And at first, they were friendly, you know. We hadn't seen dogs since – since – the dogs were friendly and we'd seen cats and, uh, other animals, but no dogs, so we thought, but then – then they attacked us and I got out but they –"

Penemue watched as the man's face crumpled up as he was talking, tears spilling out and running down his cheeks.

Peter closed the passenger door of the car, walking to him. "Hold out your arm."

"What?" The man looked down at the slim silver blade disbelievingly. "But –"

"It'll sting," Peter said prosaically. "That's all."

Penemue felt his mouth drop open as the man's skull elongated and sprouted fur and he dropped to his hands and feet, the clothing ripping and falling from him. Pale pink lips drew back from a muzzle full of sharp teeth as the hindquarters tensed for the leap at the hunter. The single shot was loud in the enclosed space, ringing in their ears and the lean, shaggy dog dropped to the ground with a squealing yelp, the transformation back to human involuntary.

"So … this is a skinwalker?" he asked Peter, gesturing at the man, lying naked on the floor and holding his thigh, the round black hole through the muscle glinting red as warm blood spilled over his skin to the floor. "The transformation is by will alone?"

"Yes," Peter said, crouching beside the man and laying the edge of the silver knife's blade against his throat. "How many?"

"More than you can deal with," the man snarled furiously.

"Oh, I don't know," Elena said softly, taking a step closer, her gun levelled at his head. "We 'ave silver. We can 'andle quite a few."

"What's happening here?" Peter pressed the knife a little more firmly into the skin, a thin curl of smoke rising from the edge as the skin began to char along the line. "Skinwalkers do not hunt in large packs."

"Our Father is here," the man cried, flinching back from the burning in his neck. "New orders. New order. Our time."

Peter glanced at Elena. "Your father?"

"Yenaaldlooshii," the man crooned, his face softening suddenly. "Our walking Father, the one who made us all. He says that soon the others will come and we must be strong, stronger than the rest … the population is so limited now."

"The human population?" Baraquiel asked, stepping closer.

The monster's face sharpened, his eyes narrowing as he stared at them. "We must ready."

Peter glanced at Elena and she nodded. "Well, they'll 'ave to be ready without you," she said coolly, her finger slipping over the trigger and pulling it smoothly. The shot rang out and the man toppled sideways to the floor, the second hole centred precisely between his wide, staring eyes.

Outside, there was furious burst of howls, drawing out and up. The Qaddiysh looked around as they dragged the man away from the car.

"'ow do you want to play this?" Elena asked Peter in a low voice. "If there are as many as 'e implied, we won't be able to take them all in the open."

Peter nodded. "And the rest of the town is probably blockaded as well." He rubbed a hand over his jaw, scratching absently at the stubble that covered it. "We'll let them come to us."

Elena looked around the interior of the building. "I'll 'ave a look around. We can probably get up under the eaves."

* * *

Peter looked up as Elena walked back toward the car. "Anything?"

"There are at least twenty out there," she said, setting the gun against the car and taking the bottle of water he offered her. "They'll attack after dark, in human form, I think, climb onto the roof and try to sneak in."

"I agree," he said. "What do you think of the first-born's plan?"

She shrugged. "It might work on the survivors who don't know what's 'appening," she said thoughtfully. "But not on the others. 'e said that their 'father' wanted them to be strong before the others came – talking about the vampires and werewolves, you think?"

Peter sighed. "Yes, I'm sure of it."

"We need to get out of here," Penemue said, walking up to them, the assault rifle looking incongruous in his hands. "The sooner we can trap Nintu, the more likely the populations will survive."

"We are running to multiple schedules, my friend," Peter told him dryly. "In any case, we need to get out of here first. We have another two cases of silver and then we're back to hand-to-hand. Single shot, Elena, you and Penemue and Shamsiel cover all the possible ways in. Baraquiel and I will go out, through the windows above the half-roof and take out whatever moves on the ground."

Elena finished the water and handed him back the bottle, lifting her arms and stretching upwards. "Yes. An' in that case, I will 'ave a nap until dark."

She turned away, and Peter watched her walk to the back of the car, opening the rear doors and slipping inside.

"You should also sleep, if you can, Peter," Penemue said quietly beside him. "Shamsiel and I will watch until dusk here."

The hunter glanced sideways at him for a moment, wondering if he'd imagined the very faint humour in the man's tone, then nodded slowly. He lifted his rifle and walked back to the rear of the car, opening the door and looking in.

"Room for another in there?"

Elena moved across, the rustle of the synthetic sleeping bag loud in the small space. "_Oui_. There is room."

He climbed in and closed the door behind him.

* * *

_**Hell**_

"Blood," Meg repeated succinctly, looking the wall. "Blood is the key to open the doors."

Dean stared at her. "Why not yours?"

She rolled her eyes. "Because I'm in here and demons can't use it to get out – or did you think we all stay in here because it's so much fun?"

"What?"

"You're a soul in flesh and blood that doesn't belong here, Dean," she explained with exaggerated care to him. "Your blood will open the doors because you're not supposed to be here."

He scowled at her tone. "How much?"

"A couple of quarts should do it," she said casually, looking down the corridor.

"How do I know you're not just shining me on?" he asked suspiciously. Two quarts was a third of what his body held. He'd be fucking lucky to crawl out after losing that.

"You don't," she said with a sigh. "But since I need to get out as much as you do, I would think the math was relatively simple."

"I don't trust you, Meg."

"Really? I'm surprised," she said acerbically. "Look, there's nothing I could do that would prove I'm on the level, Dean. I swear to you this will work and I will make sure you get back to the real world safely, alright?"

He shook his head stubbornly. "You're right, there's nothing you can do to prove it."

"I didn't have to tell you about the Colt," she said quietly. "Could've just gone straight out."

He thought about that. She was right. "Then you wouldn't've had a way to kill Crowley either."

It surprised a laugh from her. "Oh, Deano, I got a lot more interesting ways to kill that son of a bitch than a single bullet," she assured him.

He moved closer to the rock wall and pushed up the jacket sleeve on his left arm, rolling up his shirt sleeve and drawing the knife from the sheath. The artery ran down the inside, he thought uneasily. He wasn't going to have much use of the hand afterward.

Meg reached out and touched his shoulder. "Have you got anything I can pull the cut together with when it's done?"

He looked at her and shrugged out of the right side of his jacket, handing her the knife. "Use the sleeve."

She took the knife and slit through the seams, dragging the sleeve free, and handing him back the blade.

"As soon as it opens, I'll bind it tight," she told him. "You might feel dizzy –"

She stopped talking as his eyes met hers and the sharp edge of the knife ran down his forearm, a rapidly welling line of blood following the tip. Leaning up against the rock, Dean supported his arm on one knee, the blood spilling out slowly onto the ground.

"Who's in there with you?" he asked suddenly.

Crouched next to him, her shoulder against the wall, Meg lifted a shoulder slightly. "No one you have to worry about," she said. "She killed her grandmother for her pension account to get out of the nothing town she lived in and get a ticket to New York. She'd be down here anyway."

She watched the flash of disgust pass over his features. "We can't just take anyone, you know," she added, tipping her head back against the rock. "There has to be something that gives consent to us taking over."

His head snapped up as he thought of Sam, of Bobby. "Bullshit."

Meg shook her head. "No. It's not like the angel possessions, but the soul must feel as if they could deserve it, somewhere. Guilt. Or doubt. Something that feels that punishment is deserved."

Dean looked away. He knew his brother's self-doubts, and Bobby had his reasons for being able to put away the cheap, rotgut liquor he did from time to time. But he had just as many, or more, reasons to hate himself than they'd ever had. "Why not me then?"

He looked back at her silence to find her smiling a little quizzically at him. "What?"

"No question you're not riddled with guilt and shame, Deano, but there're two reasons no demon could ever possess you, without your consciously given consent."

He ducked his head at the tacit admiration in her voice, her face. "Yeah?"

"You know what you've done and you know you've paid for it," she said lightly, looking down at the blood running out of him onto the rock. "And there isn't a single chink of weakness in you, no crack in your soul to let us get in. You're the vessel of Michael," she added, a little bitterly. "You wouldn't be his vessel if you weren't impervious to moral corrosion."

Her voice was beginning to fade in and out, and he looked at her, his face screwing up as he forced himself to focus on her. The wall against his shoulder moved fractionally, a deep, grinding sound in the lowest registers, vibrating through his teeth.

"Come on, tiger," she said, leaning close to him. "Time to go."

The door was opening and he felt her take his arm, wrapping the sleeve tightly around the wound, drawing the edges together under the binding. She pulled him to his feet, her strength astonishing, and slid his right arm over her shoulder.

"Where's the medallion?" she asked tautly, and he pulled it out of his jeans pocket.

"Put it on, it'll hide both of us, I think."

Lifting the chain over his head awkwardly, he felt the disc touch his skin as he tucked it beneath the neck of his t-shirt, and the world flattened out. He didn't believe her assertions of his strength. There was probably some other, more mundane, reason for the fact that demons had steered clear of him, he thought disconnectedly. Couldn't think of it right now, but there had to be.

His fingers wouldn't grip the haft of the knife properly and he felt Meg pluck it from them, opening his mouth to protest when he smelled the poisonous stench of the riverbank and the overwhelming scent of wet dog just outside and closed it again.

Cerberus was pacing as they slipped from the crack in the ravine wall, back and forth along the stretch of the river in front of the door. The dog's six eyes moved restlessly, the heads turning from side to side as it looked for the intruder it could feel but not find in its domain.

Meg was pushing against him, forcing him to turn right, along the wall and away from the river. He wanted to protest that it was the wrong way, but his knees were shaking and he was acutely aware that it was only the slight girl beside him holding him up and keeping him moving. And the dog was already agitated without them having an argument about direction in front of it, he thought blearily.

It was a few hundred yards to the bend in the river, where the rising vapours of the escaping gases from the underworld obscured the entire section of ground between rock wall and moving water, but it felt like a thousand miles. He looked down at the rough dressing on his arm, seeing the blood seeping through it and shook his head a little, trying to clear the grey fog that was closing in around the edges of his vision. He felt Meg shrug beneath his shoulder, changing her grip on his right arm and tightening her hold around his back, taking more of his weight as she hurried them both into the concealing miasma.

The puff of fetid, rotten air in front of them stopped her dead, and Dean stumbled at the abrupt halt, lifting his head and opening his eyes. In front of them, Cerberus stood, taller than him, he recognised belatedly, the dog's chest the width of three men, the massive heads lowering as it exhaled again, its breath blowing over them, stirring Meg's hair and filling his nose and mouth with a stomach-turning blast of decomposition-tainted wind. He forced himself not to gag – _not to move_ – as the blood-red eyes of the wolf's head stared straight at him, the nose lifting and casting this way and that for the scent it was sure was there.

Close-up, he could see that the wolf's head was the decision-maker. To the left, the dhole's mouth was open, a long grey-green tongue hanging out, the shorter, broader teeth gleaming like old ivory and dripping strands of saliva that were thick and sticky, filled with small, writhing creatures. Dean's stomach gave a shuddering heave as he realised he was looking at maggots in the ropey drool. He shifted the direction of his gaze without moving. The head on the right of the wolf's was uglier still, he thought vaguely, the hyena's coarse fur striped and brindled, the long, black-tipped ears swivelling like radar dishes. Set deep into the sockets of the flattened skull, the small eyes searched relentlessly for them.

A splash in the river behind them took the dog's attention from them, and Dean watched as Cerberus's outline began to fade, dissolving into transparency until only the red eyes staring at him were left, hanging in the air, then they too vanished. For a moment longer, they stood completely still, breath aching in their lungs. Down the river, there was the soft thud of the boat hitting the bank and they exhaled, long, quiet expulsions of air in perfect unison.

Meg's fingers tightened against his side and he was ready when she took a step forward, slightly amazed that his legs were working at all.

Half-listening to the sounds behind them, the souls disembarking and entering Hell, they walked faster along the river bank, navigating through the thickening fog by the sound of the river beside them.

"What happens if you touch the water?" he breathed.

"You die," Meg answered flatly, her voice as soft as his.

"How do we get across then?" he asked a moment later, as the river turned again.

"Shut up," Meg whispered back. He glanced down at the foreshortened view he had of her face, seeing her hair hanging in damp rat's tails around it. Despite the heat that seemed to rise from the ground, he felt cold and a shiver passed through him. He felt her arm tighten around him, her fingers close harder on his wrist and he leaned against her a little more.

"Not far, okay?" she said, taking his weight stoically. "Just stay upright a bit longer, Dean."

He was fucking tired and that was the truth, he thought, trying to pick up his feet so that he didn't send them both crashing to the ground.

The mists began to thin out, some kind of light that wasn't a pulsing reddish non-light, illuminating the ground ahead of them. Here and there, clumps of dead, dried-up grasses protruded from the blackened soil, and he could see the far bank now, shockingly green and lush-looking.

Meg slowed and turned them to the left, supporting him as she led them down the gently sloping bank. The river was no more than thirty yards across here, and Dean blinked in the brighter light, seeing the stones without registering their meaning.

"This is where we cross," Meg said in a low voice, glancing back over her shoulder up the bank. "We have to hurry, Dean."

He nodded and looked at the stones, their purpose slowing sinking in. "Stepping stones?"

"Yeah," she said. "You have to make each one, okay? If you get stuck, the dog can get you."

He thought of the maggots, squirming in the saliva, and straightened up, dragging in a deep breath. _Definitely don't want to end up as puppy chow_. The distances between the stones seemed … long … for stepping stones. Leaping stones more like it.

"Dean," Meg said, snapping her fingers in front of his face. "I can't help you with this, you have to do it on your own, you understand?"

"Yeah, I got it," he said, a trace of annoyance colouring his voice. "I can do this."

Meg looked doubtfully at him. "I fucking hope so."

She eased out from under his arm, keeping her hand on him as he swayed slightly. It was hard to maintain a single thread of thought and he reminded himself that if he touched the water, that was the end of it. No life. No family. No closing the gates or getting rid of the monsters or seeing the people he loved again. The thought anchored him a little more firmly and he found his balance, nodding to the demon and watching her turn to the edge of the bank, gather herself and jump.

She landed easily on the first stone, perhaps a yard and a half away. Not so hard, he thought, brows drawn together as he watched her make the second jump. That one seemed a little further, and the third just that much more of a stretch. _Come on, get on with it_. Medallion or no medallion, if the hellhound figured out they'd escaped, it'd be on them and that too would be the end of it.

He walked down to the edge of the water and filled his lungs and jumped. The first rock was broad and flat, the surface dry and grippy under his bootsoles. He looked back at the bank and saw the vaporous mist swirling slightly. Turning back to the next stone, he jumped again. The second rock was slightly smaller, with a slant to it and he felt his right foot slide a little toward the water, snatching it back, his breath whistling a little in his throat as he looked down at the river, the surface black and opaque. _No dips today_, he told himself, looking to the next rock.

It was further. Quite a bit further. A standing jump and not enough blood and he began to wonder if he was going to make to the other side. _Just do it_. He crouched a little and jumped, the water flashing by under him and the third rock was much smaller than the first two had been, moisture over its lumpy, uneven surface and his feet slipping, his heart jumping into his throat as he over-corrected and teetered on the edge on one foot. He regained his balance and felt sweat dripping from his hair and rolling down his face, lifting his arm to wipe it away as he looked across the river.

Meg had reached the other side, and was standing there, watching him. There were another four rocks and he realised that each was spaced a little further from the previous one, each one was smaller than the last and on the last one, he could see the slick gleam of moisture over the surface. He felt his heart sinking and he shook off the doubt that seemed to be rising proportionally, inwardly baring his teeth. He'd just gotten in and out of Hell, and he'd be damned if he was going to fuck up the last stretch.

Not giving himself any more time to think about it, he jumped for the next one, heart pounding against his ribs as he landed on the edge and leaned forward, thrusting hard against the opposite side as he took off for the next one. Too short, he thought, staring fixedly at the surface, stretching out as far as he could and willing himself to reach it. He did, just, swaying as he readjusted his balance and bent over, his hand resting against his thigh as he breathed in and out, shedding the fear and oxygenating his blood. Two more. Just two and he'd be across.

He jumped and made the heart-contracting stretch again, his feet sliding out from under him as he landed, the sharp twist of his ankle wrenching his knee, the combination draining him, his shirt dark and clammy now with the sweat that had soaked through it.

"Don't look back," Meg shouted from the bank. "One more, come on!"

_Christ_, he thought wearily. _Don't say 'don't look back'_. He resisted the impulse and looked ahead to the next rock. It was three yards away, tiny, shining with the lapping water that spilled over it. He could see the greenish moss that coated one side now. It was impossible. Fucking impossible.

"Come on!" Meg's voice held a shrill note and he didn't look around, just dug his toes into the crevices of the rock he was standing on and jumped. _Don't land on it_, he thought in mid-air, _just use it for an extra stride_. A gust of wind blew past him and he knew that the dog was close behind him, the reeking fetor of its breath pushing against his back. His foot touched the slick surface and the muscles of his leg and back and abdomen contracted, absorbing the landing, building momentum, and he sprang out, four yards from the fucking bank and there was no way he was going to make that jump, no run off, no goddamned energy, just adrenalin surging through him like a bolt from a high voltage line … he saw Meg lean out from the bank, heard the panting behind him, and stretched out as far he could, his hand touching the demon's as the snap of teeth cracked the air and his foot touched solid ground. Meg's strength yanked him clear of the water, her weight thrown back hard, and they both hit the ground, rolling away from the river.

Dean breathed in the clean, living scent of the soil and the grass, eyes half-closed. Rolling onto his side, he levered himself up on an elbow and looked back at the river, seeing no sign of the dog. The mists shrouded the far bank, the stones, ordinary, flat, black stones evenly spaced across the water seemed simple enough from here to jump across on, the light, not quite sunlight, but warmer and brighter than it'd been on the other side, sparkling on the rills and wavelets of the current as it passed around the rocks.

He let himself fall back, closing his eyes and feeling his heart slow down, his breathing ease.

"Like to cut it close, don't you?" Meg said sourly from a few feet away.

He opened an eye, rolling it toward her. "Quit griping."

She laughed and sat up. "Get up, let's get the fuck out of here."

For a moment, he wondered what he was doing, here with this demon – this demon who'd been responsible for destroying his friends, his family. The memory of his father's face, bleak and anguished as he'd pulled the truck off the road and told them that Jim was dead. Murdered by this demon next to him. The panic in John's voice as he heard Caleb die on the end of the phone line with Meg telling him she'd kill them all if he didn't bring the Colt. His jaw tightened and he lay still, letting the memories and the pain and the remembered fury and frustration wash through him.

Meg watched the expressions cross his face, watched him tense up. The past had risen for him, she thought, all the things that she'd done to bring him here. All the things her father had done. She couldn't explain to him that things had been different then. The whole world had been different. She was almost certain that he wouldn't listen. And it didn't matter anyway. She'd done all those things, done them and revelled in them, in her power, in her position. She couldn't tell him that she regretted it now.

"Why are you helping me?" he asked, his voice hard.

"You're the only game in town," she said simply.

He sat up, turning to look at her. "Not good enough."

"That's all I got."

"I killed Lucifer, Meg," he said, watching her face. "Drove the Spear right through him."

She looked away. "I know."

"You telling me that you don't want me dead?"

"No," she said, looking back at him, her face smooth and expressionless. "No, I'm not telling you that, Dean." She hesitated for a moment. "I would gladly rip you into small, unrecoverable pieces for what you've done. But I've learned something along the way here, something I didn't know back in the day."

"Thrill me."

She glared at him. "I don't have to explain myself to you!"

"Yeah, this time, you do," Dean said, rolling to his knees stiffly. "'Cause we're not going anywhere until I know where you're coming from."

"It's the cause that counts, Dean," she told him unwillingly. "One thing, one mission, one purpose to life. The reason to get up every morning and strap on the weaponry and go out into the world." She looked up at him. "You already knew that. It's built into your genes." She shrugged, looking back at the river. "Took me a little longer to figure out."

He frowned at her. He did know it. He couldn't imagine how a demon had come to the conclusion that had driven him his whole life.

"And the cause is?"

"Crowley."

"Crowley?" he asked doubtfully. The demon might've been the King of Hell but he wasn't sure that with everything else going on he was the biggest problem.

She smiled humourlessly at him. "Crowley is an anomaly," she said shortly. "Everyone else, the angels, the archdemons, the humans – hell, even the monsters – know their place and what they're supposed to do. Crowley doesn't have a limiter like that. He wants it all. And he's got just enough street-smarts to figure out how to get it. He's looking for the angel tablet – for all of them actually – so that he can control Heaven and Hell and the creatures locked up for all eternity, so that he can manipulate the leftovers of the population – so that he can control everything."

Dean studied her, recognising the passion in her delivery but still suspicious of her motives. "And your cause this week is to prevent that?"

Biting back the retort that sprang to mind, she nodded. "Yeah, that's it."

Getting to his feet, he wondered about how far she'd go. "I keep the Colt."

"Yeah, Dean," she snorted softly. "You do."

She watched him sway, eyelids fluttering shut as dizziness hit him and got up quickly, sliding her arm around his ribs and drawing his arm over her shoulder. She could feel him tense at her touch, ignoring it as she settled his weight over her shoulders and straightened her knees.

"Then what was in this for you?"

"Aside from being spared several hundred years of excruciating torture?" she asked him drolly. "I'm out. And you have what he wanted plus the means to kill him. And I have a lot of ideas of how to get him where I want him so that things can return to normal."

"Normal?"

"Back to the natural order," she clarified tersely. "You do understand about the natural order, don't you?"

The sarcasm pricked at him and he looked away. "The gate's through those woods."

"About time," she muttered, catching his stumble with the first step and holding him steady. The rough dressing around his arm was soaked through, the bleeding much slowed but not stopped. She didn't want to have to carry him through the gate.

What she'd told him had all been true. Not the whole of the truth, of course, but he hadn't asked further and that suited her just fine. Digging up information, watching the Grigori as they'd started to move, she had a good idea that the man walking in front of her was the nexus to all the things that had wrecked the natural order of things, and he still didn't believe it, didn't want to believe it, maybe. But he would come to understand that what he did, what he put into action, would change the world several times over before he'd finished. And she would be around, watching and pushing when she could, to make sure that it all went the way it was supposed to.

She felt the gate as they approached it through the woods. It was pulsing slightly, with the same unnatural heartbeat that could be felt in the depths of Hell. Something was holding it open, she thought, a tremor of fear skittering up her spine. Gates didn't stay open. And they didn't open and close on their own. Someone had used a lot of power to make this one behave in this way.

A zephyr of cold air brushed past Dean's face, the scent of snow and ice on it, and he stopped, turning his head slowly until he caught the shimmer of the gate in the corner of his eye.

"It's there," he said, taking a step closer to it.

Meg felt the power of it crawl over her skin as she walked with him. "We have a deal, right?"

He looked down at her consideringly. If he left her here, she probably wouldn't be able to do much more harm. He thought he could get himself through the fucking gate if need be.

What she'd said about Crowley, and about her own plans for him, was still resounding in his mind. The demon might've been just a human-born crossroads hellspawn, but he had the power of every soul in Hell now. And he'd learned some things along the way here as well. Utilising strengths where he found it, for one. Strategising for the bigger picture for another. Death had told him he stood on the nodes of the lines of destiny. That his actions would be the ones that counted. That was too big. It was unimaginable, that responsibility. He needed help and there was a good chance, better than even odds that the demon holding him upright could help with what he had to do.

He let out his breath, and nodded slowly. "Yeah, we got a deal."

She didn't respond, just tightened her grip on him and took a stride toward the pulsing fabric of the join between planes, feeling his stride beside her as they stepped between.

* * *

Castiel blinked as Dean stumbled out of thin air with a woman wrapped around him, the man's arm soaked bright red and his skin pale.

"Dean," he said, striding forward to catch them, flinching back as he saw the demon's face under the woman's. He lifted his hand automatically.

"No," Dean snapped, catching the angel's wrist as Meg let go of him and backed away.

"She's a demon!"

"I know," Dean said, glancing over his shoulder at Meg. "But for now, she's, uh, neutral."

"Demons are not neutral, Dean!" Cas retorted, pulling his arm free and stepping to one side.

Meg looked at the angel warily as Dean swayed back and forth.

"Cas, it's a long story, but we're letting her go."

Castiel turned to look at him, eyes narrowing as he saw the lack of focus in Dean's eyes. "What happened?"

"Lost some blood," Dean muttered, his knees sagging. "Use a little help here."

He glanced past the angel, seeing Meg nod and vanish as Cas reached out and touched his forehead with two fingers. The … _energy? life-force? whatever it was_ … flowed into him and he drew in a deep breath, eyes closing as the angel restored him.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Cas said, looking around and sighing as he realised the demon had gone. "What happened?"

Unwinding the blood-soaked sleeve from his arm, Dean wiped ineffectually at the now-smooth skin, wondering how to recap in fifty words or less.

"Getting in wasn't too bad," he said, looking up at the angel. "Getting out again, not so easy."

"You didn't know how to open the gates from the inside?"

Dean looked away and shrugged. "I got the tablet. And a bonus gift. So, let's go home."

The angel stared at him for a moment in frustration, then reached out again, fingers closing hard around his shoulder.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

The jarring contact with the ground brought his eyes open and he looked at the illusions surrounding them in disappointment. He hadn't thought to specify a destination to the angel, thinking he'd be returned to the top of the keep. Glancing at Cas now, he realised that the angel had made his own decision about the tablet.

"Subtle," he said sourly to Cas as the illusions disappeared with the clunking thuds of the locking rings of the safehold undoing in front of them.

"The prophet needs the tablet," Castiel said blandly.

"What the hell, Dean!?" Sam burst through the door and Dean felt the gust as Cas disappeared.

"Where's Chuck?" he asked, walking to meet Sam, his fingers curled around the stone inside his jacket.

"This is totally unacceptable, even for you," Sam snapped, gesturing behind him in answer to his brother's question. "Why the hell didn't you come and get me?"

Dean looked past him and walked down the stairs to the door. "It was an impulse thing," he said dismissively, slowing and turning as they passed into the building and Sam stopped to pull the door closed behind them.

He pulled the tablet out, unwrapping it and handing it to Sam.

Taking the stone, Sam felt a wave of repugnance wash through him, his fingers tightening hard on the slick surface against the desire to throw it from him. He wondered briefly if it'd had the same effect on his brother.

"You're the one who's supposed to close the gates, Dean," he hissed at him as they walked down the stairs. "What are we supposed to do if you die before that happens? Draw straws?"

Dean sighed. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"What the fuck happened to back up? To trusting me? To looking out for each other?"

They reached the situation room and Dean stopped abruptly, turning to face him. "Look, it worked. I got the tablet, and something else. I'm alive. It's okay. Can we just drop it now?"

"No, we can't drop it now," Sam retorted, his worry and anger of the last few hours fanned again by Dean's refusal to see what could've happened. "Alex was worried about you."

_Low blow_, Dean thought, turning away. He'd thought he might be back before she'd woken, or he would've made an effort to leave a note.

Jerome looked up from the book on the table as they walked up the stairs and into the library. "Back from Hell, I understand."

Dean resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. "Where's Chuck?"

"Here," Chuck said softly, walking into the room from the hallway at the other end. "You got it?"

"Time to get reading," Dean agreed lightly, seeing the trepidation in the writer's face.

Sam walked across the room. Looking at the stone in Sam's hands, Chuck turned away, walking to the table and sitting down. "From what I've seen, I'm probably going to get sucked into that thing," he said to no one in particular, looking at the polished wood surface. "I need a pen and paper."

Dean took the notepad and a pen from in front of Jerome and slid them along the table, looking at Sam. Chuck caught them and positioned them on the table, then reached out for the tablet.

When his hands touched it, the engraved symbols lit up, a flash of light that seemed to burn right through the slender man, showing bones and veins clearly through the skin. Chuck froze, the tablet gripped tightly in his hands, his gaze fixed forward but, Dean thought, looking inward.

"Chuck?" Dean said tentatively, moving along the table. Sam leaned closer on the other side.

"Chuck!"

"He can't hear you," Jerome said matter-of-factly from the other end of the table. "He's become the conduit. He won't see or hear anything now until the tablet stops speaking to him."

Dean glanced at the professor and back to the prophet. "Will he be okay?"

Shrugging, Jerome looked back at his book. "Let's hope so."

"Stay with him," Dean said to Sam, straightening up. "I'm going back to the keep. Let me know when he starts writing."

"This isn't over," Sam said irritably.

"Of course not." Dean smiled and turned away, turning back after a couple of strides. "Oh, and Sam?"

"What?"

He drew the Colt from his belt, grinning as he saw Sam's mouth drop open.

"Where was it?"

"In Crowley's office," Dean said, slipping the gun back through his belt. "Just changed the whole game again, huh?"


	12. Chapter 12 By Order of the Demon King

**Chapter 12 By Order of the Demon King**

* * *

_**February. Hell**_

The demon looked at the empty rock wall and back at the two men in front of him.

"Well? Where is she?" Crowley asked curtly. There were times when he realised that the general population of his kingdom were less than bright. In fact, there were times when he considered that the majority of the souls contained in the pit were not worth the effort it took to turn them into demons.

The larger man's eyes were black, corner to corner. It should've been a terrifying sight, Crowley thought bleakly. Instead, accompanied by the steady flop-sweat of the man in front of him, it was merely annoying. Like looking at a bug flattened on a windshield.

"She was here, this is where we left her!" the demon muttered nervously, checking the length of the corridor in both directions. "She couldn't have gotten out, she was in the rock."

"Uh-huh," the King of Hell commented noncommittally, looking at the smaller man.

"'e's right, guv, we puts 'er 'ere yesterday, an' she couldn't've gotten out," he wheedled, hands twisting nervously around each other.

Crowley sighed. Proportionally speaking, the numbers from east London were high down here.

"And yet …," he said, lifting a hand and waving it pointedly at the empty wall. "Are you suggesting that someone wandered in and released her?"

"N-n-no, sir," the larger demon stammered. He didn't have the faintest idea of what could've happened. He knew, in some detail, what would happen – to him – if the King decided to make an example of him.

"So there's a possibility that you did not, in fact, secure her well enough?" Crowley asked, looking from one to the other slowly.

"She were in there tight, guv!" the smaller demon said quickly. "The rock 'ad 'er!"

Turning away, Crowley walked slowly away from them, considering the possibilities. He should have been there to supervise her incarceration himself, he knew. The fallen were taking up far too much of his time with their war-mongering. Still, the daughter of Azazel was a unprecedented anomaly in and of herself. Born nephilim and raised by a witch on the earthly plane, she had, according to the rumour mill, given up her soul willingly to Hell to join her father in the pit. And had willingly suffered the centuries of torture under Alastair himself to become her father's most powerful tool. That kind of loyalty was rare indeed and when the oldest Winchester boy had killed her father, she'd transferred it immediately to Lucifer.

She loathed him with a hatred that had long passed obsessive, Crowley knew. She'd been plotting against him for the last few months with an eye for detail that showed her heritage. And she knew far too much – about him, about the workings of the accursed plane, about his predecessor – he should've killed her outright.

If she had escaped … the thought of what she could do, down here, roaming freely, brought a faint sense of alarm. The office, he realised with a convulsive jerk. He vanished, the air rushing to fill the space he'd occupied with a soft pop.

In the corridor, the demons looked at each other and begin to walk quickly in the opposite direction. Neither were very old. Both had heard of the abyss and what happened to those who had failed the new king. Better to make themselves scarce and lay low.

* * *

Crowley looked around the office slowly, eyes narrowed. His gaze crossed the desk without registering what should have been there and wasn't once, then jerked back to look at the empty spot in disbelief.

_No._

_Nononononononononono!_ Reaching the desk in a stride, his hand passed over the smooth wood as if he were expecting to feel it, invisible but still there and his face spasmed as his hand met nothing.

_NO!_

She'd been bound into the meatsuit they'd found her in, he thought feverishly, bound and trapped in it. Not even her power could've broken her free. Even if she could escape from the rock, and make it here, she could not've touched the fucking tablet, not without agony. Even he could barely handle it, the power it contained too alien to what had become of his soul. For her it would've been a thousand times worse. And she could not have opened a gate, not even a door to the borders. Her blood wasn't a key, none of the ingredients necessary for the opening were here … if not escape then what, he wondered furiously?

_Rescue?_

Who would rescue her, he asked himself, pacing across the office. No one even knew she was here. He threw himself into the chair behind the desk and grabbed the bottle sitting on the polished black surface impatiently, dropping the decanter's cut crystal stopper as he poured the whiskey into his glass. Turning, he looked down. The stopper lay on the Persian rug beside the desk. Above it a thin shadow lay against the wood frame of the desk in a way that was completely wrong.

Pushing the chair back, Crowley stared at the sliver of shadow that lay between the cupboard door and its frame. The door was open. He kept it locked.

He yanked it open, fingers scrabbling for the box that was kept in there, feeling the weight with a deepening spiral of anxiety as he lifted it to the desk's blotter. His fear was instantly sublimated in a rage that forced the vein to one side of his forehead into a thick, rapidly pulsing blemish as he stared fixedly at the empty interior of the velvet-lined box.

The tablet. And the_ Colt_.

Meg had been here, he knew that with a certainty that shook through his frame like a peal of thunder. But not alone. She couldn't've gotten here alone. And very, very few knew about the Colt, knew it well enough to recognise it if they came across it by accident.

Erupting to his feet, his arm swept violently across the desk, sweeping box, glass, decanter, blotter and files to the floor in an explosion of noise and debris and the sharp, acrid smell of spilled whiskey. The goblet was in the cupboard on the other side and he snatched it out, closing his eyes and snapping his fingers.

The larger of the two men who'd been in charge of securing the prisoner appeared beside him, blinking at the sudden transition, unaware of his danger until the knife had transected his throat completely and the blood from his meatsuit was pouring out of him, filling the cup held under his arteries.

Crowley threw the man from him as soon as the goblet was full, murmuring the incantation softly and stirring the surface of the warm liquid.

_What's happening there?_

_There was some coming and going between the castles. Nothing else._

_Did anyone leave? Anyone come back?_

_Not that we've seen._

Crowley stared at the goblet. Four demons were watching the town and the surrounding countryside, from a distance. They couldn't get closer, the patrols encompassed a five mile radius around all the keeps they'd built there and what he wanted to know was generally of a look-and-alert nature, following the attack on the forward post of the Grigori.

_Watch them closely._

_Yes, my liege._

He leaned back in his chair, glancing down at the wreckage of the decanter and glass, registering finally the sharp smell of the wasted whiskey. He pushed the fleeting pang of regret aside. He had more.

His assistant had found a considerable amount of information on the Winchesters and he'd come to the conclusion that they were indeed spoilers, created by design to upset and cock up the various threads of destiny that others had put into action. The killing of Azazel and the raising of the eldest from the pit – on _God's_ orders, his source had said succinctly and more than once – and the killing of Lucifer. The younger one had destroyed both Samhain and Alastair and had then killed Lilith, although according to one demon, that had been the plan all along. It beggared belief that a human could have destroyed three of the most powerful demons in the hierarchies of Hell.

The English girl had told him that the Winchesters had had the Colt in their possession for a long time. But if they hadn't left Kansas, how would they've been able to get into Hell to retrieve it, even if they knew of the way the plane worked.

He leaned on his elbows on the desk. The Colt. And the tablet. They were the only ones who needed both. However they'd gotten in, Meg had undoubtedly shown them the way out. And connecting the dots … as few as there were … he thought that the Winchesters were the ones holding his possessions now.

It would put the time-table forward. That would please Baeder, if no one else. But he was going to need a diversion, something irresistible. Leaning over to pull out the top drawer on the left hand side of the desk, he withdrew a small, white candle. Raphael would have to handle that part himself, Crowley thought with a small spurt of delight that he could actually involve the archangel in getting his hands dirty for once.

* * *

_**West Keep, Lebanon**_

Alex poured coffee into five mugs and set them on a tray, lifting it and carrying it into the living room.

"You could've been trapped down there for good," Ellen snapped at Dean, shifting automatically as Alex moved past her to set the tray on the low table and transfer the mugs of steaming black liquid to the table top. "What good would that have done anyone?"

"What kind of a dumb-assed idea was it to go off without even telling anyone, or taking backup?" Bobby added, his voice hoarse.

Glancing up at him as she moved his cup in front of him, Alex saw the muscle jump in Dean's jaw. She moved the tray to the table behind the sofa and sat down next to him.

"How's Chuck?" she asked, taking advantage of the thirty-second window as Bobby and Ellen picked up their cups.

"Still reading," Bobby growled, his gaze returning to Dean. "He hasn't moved, except to write."

"What's he writing?" Dean asked, deciding to ignore the rhetorical questions of the previous half-hour rant. So far, he'd had Rufus and Maurice and now Bobby and Ellen yelling at him. Sam was sitting in the armchair kitty-corner to the long sofa, glaring unrelentingly at him, no doubt waiting his turn.

"We don't know," Ellen snapped, her scowling expression unmollified by the change in topic. "Marla is giving him fresh sheets as he fills each one, but the handwriting itself is pretty bad, and we're only getting bits and pieces."

"Not visions, then?" Alex looked from her to Sam.

Sam shook his head. "No, this seems to be a direct translation of the tablet."

"Meg said that the archdemons had been imprisoned," Dean said casually, putting his cup down as he looked at Bobby. "She thought Crowley figured out a spell of some kind to keep them out of the way while he took over."

"Katherine has been working on figuring the hierarchy in the pit," Bobby said, his tone a little more reasonable. "She said that Crowley isn't even mentioned in the lists."

"Unsurprising, he was a crossroads demon, apparently," Dean agreed. "Meg didn't know how he found the throne, but that's how he got the power."

"Which was supposed to go to one of the archdemons?"

"That's what she said." Dean shrugged, leaning back. "Do we have much on the archdemons?"

"Plenty," Ellen nodded. "They were the first-fallen, the ones who fell at Lucifer's side. They were all he had available to torture for the first thousand years, until God decreed that Lilith would go to Hell."

"What happened to all the human souls that were evil before then?" Alex asked curiously.

"They were thrown into the bottomless abyss," Bobby said shortly. "There were no demons, apparently they just existed in endless pain."

"Meg said that Crowley is a sport, of a kind," Dean told them, leaning forward a little. "Doesn't play by the rules, doesn't follow the protocols, has a big, ambitious agenda. She said he was more dangerous than anything else because he'd manipulate everyone to get what he wants."

"By 'everyone' she meant?" Bobby lifted a brow at him.

"Heaven, Hell, everyone," Dean said. "She said he didn't care about the other tablets."

"This is Meg we're talking about, Dean," Sam interjected suddenly, his coffee slopping up the sides of his cup as he leaned toward his brother. "Meg, who killed Jim and Caleb and tortured Dad."

Dean turned to look at him steadily. "I know."

"And all of a sudden you trust her? Trust everything she tells you?"

"No," Dean said mildly. "I don't trust her. But I'm damned if I can think of a reason for her to lie about this stuff."

"Hello? Demon? She lies like breathing, man," Sam retorted, his brow wrinkling. "Why didn't you kill her when you got the Colt?"

"Because I was stuck in Hell," Dean countered irritably.

"Then when you got out?" Ellen asked him.

"I made a judgement call," Dean told her curtly. "She's more use hunting down Crowley than dead."

"If you can believe that's what she's doing," Sam said shortly.

Dean looked at him for a long moment. "Yeah, well, that's what I think she's doing."

"This ain't helping," Bobby cut in between them. "It's too late to worry about Meg."

"No argument," Dean said, staring at his brother with a stony expression.

Sam looked away and picked up his coffee.

"Thanks for the coffee, Alex," Ellen said into the growing silence. "We need to get back to library," she added to Bobby and Sam as she got to her feet.

For a moment, Sam remained stubbornly where he was, then he gulped down the rest of the coffee and got up, not looking at his brother.

"You're stayin' put for the next few days?" Bobby asked Dean as they both stood.

"Yeah, I'll be around."

"If we find out anything more on weapons against the demons –" Bobby said, looking at him.

"I'll be there," Dean confirmed with a flickered glance at Sam. "How's Adam working out over there?"

"Good," Sam said, shifting his feet. He'd wanted to talk to Dean about their half-brother – the tension over the side-trip to Hell had blown that prospect out of the water. He glanced uncomfortably at Bobby and Ellen who were listening with interest. "Uh … if you're coming over to see Chuck's stuff, we could … um …"

"Yeah," Dean said quickly, knowing both what Sam wanted to say and why he wasn't going to say it in front of the others. "Good idea."

"Okay." Sam turned for the hall and walked away, Ellen following him more slowly. Bobby looked at Dean.

"We'll need your input on this," he said tensely, his gaze skittering to Alex and back to the hunter.

"We're looking at what we've got so far, Bobby," Dean said carefully. "We'll be over later."

The older man nodded resignedly and turned away and Dean followed him to the door, closing it behind them.

"That was a minefield," Alex said quietly as he came back into the room.

Dean nodded dryly. "Yeah."

He'd known he'd get hell when he got back, had been hoping to have the tablet before anyone had realised he'd gone. But of all of them, it'd only been Alex who hadn't yelled at him for risking his life on an ill-thought-out and impulsive action, and it wasn't because she hadn't seen the longer-reaching consequences of what might have been, he thought. She'd just thought he was capable of handling whatever had come up and she hadn't let whatever she'd felt about the risk of him not coming back override her obvious relief that he had.

He watched her pick up the cups and take them back to the kitchen, wondering at that depth of belief in him.

"Did you find out anything about protection against the nephilim and cambion?" he called out, walking to the table and looking at the piles of books and older, hand-bound manuscripts that were piled at one end.

"A bit," she said, coming back into the room and walking to the table to pick up her notes. "Most of the stuff we already know and use isn't a help, but Katherine gave me some translations of a couple of older texts, from when the Qaddiysh and their children were living openly with people in Canaan."

She sat on the sofa and he dropped next to her, looking over her shoulder at the neatly typed papers she was holding.

"They were regarded as special from the moment they appeared," she said, skimming through the pages. "Guardians, almost, to a few of the tribes living there, sharing knowledge and protecting them from warfare with other peoples."

"What about the Grigori? Where were they at this point?"

"On the other side of the Dead Sea, to the north, mostly," Alex shifted as he settled himself back against the high arm of the sofa, and drew her back between his legs. She leaned against his chest, lifting the pages so that he could read them as well. "They were regarded differently. They meddled – a lot – with the local people and they were feared for their power. I'm not a hundred percent sure of the translations in some of those texts, I need to go over it with Jasper, but the overall feeling was that the Grigori were outcasts and cruel – even their children were cruel."

"Why? What'd they do?" He frowned, trying to recall the conversation the scholars had had about the two factions of fallen angels and what the Qaddiysh had told them in Jordan.

"They would take slaves, mostly kidnapped from the caravans that moved along the trade routes between Egypt and Turkey, but sometimes from the local villages or nomadic tribes as well," she said, flipping through the pages to find the details. "They were practising black magic, I think, because there was a lot of stories that turned into mythology about them using people for sacrifices."

"Here," she said, lifting the page and reading. "Many people disappeared in the lands between the Dead Sea and the Broken Mountains. They were not seen again, and propitiations were made against the evil sorcerers who lived there. Strange creatures sometimes walked the night, and many times someone who had disappeared would come back, but without their memories or themselves, walking like the dead out of the desert, their eyes blank and blood-filled, unable to speak."

"Zombies?" Dean wondered aloud. Alex tilted her head back against his shoulder to look up at him.

"I was wondering if those weren't their experiments in making doppelgängers?"

He nodded slowly, the conversation about their Nazi involvement coming back to him. "Did we find the spells or whatever it is to do that?"

"No, the library doesn't have anything on it, and neither does the French chapter," she said. "The Scots and the Cape Verde scholars were still looking."

"Not creepy at all."

"Yeah," she said and he felt the shiver against his chest as it rippled through her. "The Grigori didn't care at all about the people they were living amongst."

Dean nodded. "The Qaddiysh said that they'd run, when Lucifer was defeated and cast down, half his army just took off into the desert."

"They'd already betrayed Heaven, I guess it wasn't such a shock to betray their leader as well," she said, the last word caught in a yawn. "I wonder if it was after that that disobedience became one of Heaven's worst crimes?"

He hadn't considered it but it fit. "Seems likely."

"Anyway," she said, opening her eyes and looking back through the notes. "There are a number of sigils, that were given to the people living near the Grigori, to ward off the nephilim."

"Good," he said, looking over shoulder.

"It's not easy," she warned him, passing the page that detailed the protection. "Oliver says we have some of the ingredients, but only in small supplies, so we need to decide what're the most important things to protect."

Dean read over the ingredients, brows drawing together. "Did Maggie leave a list of what was at the Smithsonian when she looked at it last month?"

"December," Alex corrected him. "And yeah, she did. Some of these things we can definitely get from there, almost all the organic ingredients, but some – I don't know where you'd find them. The library didn't have a record of where their stocks had been obtained from originally either." She looked at the list, eyes narrowing. "And I don't think we can get to the Smithsonian and back before something happens. Unless Cas takes you?"

"He made it pretty clear he was pretty busy right now," Dean said, wondering if the angel would come for a supply run. If it made a difference to them surviving … or not. "How much do we have right now?"

"Enough to ensure that the library can be protected, and perhaps a part of this keep," she said, hiding another yawn behind her hand.

"Is that being done?" he asked her, his arm curving around her waist to draw her closer as he heard the yawn.

"The entrance to the order's building has been, Oliver did it straight away," she said. "Aaron and Felix are arguing with Rufus and Father Emilio about how to protect the keep."

"What's the problem?"

"Felix believes that a single large room should be protected, so that people can go there if we are attacked," Alex told him. "Rufus and Father Emilio think that the walls should be done to make the building inviolate."

"We don't have enough to do all the walls, do we?"

"No," she agreed, closing her eyes. "The sigils' power would hold even if the walls were brought down, but only if every one was marked. And there's not enough to do that, no matter how small the sigils are made."

"I'll talk to them later," he decided, half to himself, aware that the tiredness that categorised this stage of her pregnancy was stealing her away moment by moment. He'd talked to Merrin about it reluctantly, the nurse grabbing him as he'd gone to see Kim about supplies. She'd told him far more than he'd really wanted to know about the biological and psychological effects of pregnancy, but he had to admit, looking at the last couple of months with the benefit of hindsight and that information, a whole lot had made much more sense.

"Mmm." Alex opened her eyes and lifted the pages. "There's nothing that covers the cambion, though, Dean." She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I talked to Jasper about it, and their demonic heritage is supposed to be – according to the myth, anyway – completely through the human body they're born with but no devil's trap works on them – he thinks that's because they have a soul – and iron is only a little more irritating to them than it is to us, or any normal human."

"Did he have any ideas about the knife?" he asked her, catching the pages as they slipped out of her hands.

"Uh, um … no," she said, her eyes dropping closed again. "But there was a reference that Davis found in relation to a fight the Qaddiysh had with some demons …"

"What reference, Alex?" Dean asked her gently.

"Um … it said something about a metal that could …"

"Could?" he prompted her.

"Could what?" she asked him sleepily. His mouth lifted slightly at one corner.

"That was my question."

"Oh … the metal was specially forged," she said. "On the table. I don't know …"

Her breath escaped in a long sigh and he fished the rest of the pages from her lap, reaching over to drop them on the table beside him. He'd look for the reference in a while, he thought, letting his eyes close as he listened to her steady breathing, feeling the tension of the earlier meeting dissipating.

The sigils would not allow a nephilim to pass them, he thought absently, but what they really needed were traps. To hold them. Give them leverage of their own against the fallen and the demons. And they needed something for the cambion, something final. The man he'd fought had been enormously strong and fast, and it'd only been the man's over-confidence in his abilities and luck holding at the end that'd saved him.

His hand slid over the growing curve of Alex's belly, resting lightly against it. She was fifteen weeks, according to Kim, the pronounced bulge partly a result of two in there, partly due to the fact that they were a little larger than the doctor had expected. Kim hadn't given a reason for it and he wasn't sure if Alex was okay with that or worried. Something else he wanted to ask her, he thought drowsily.

The flutter against his palm was shocking in its unexpectedness and he lifted his hand instantly, looking down over Alex's shoulder at the smooth stretch of fabric that covered her where his hand had been. Lifting it, he stared at the taut curve, eyes widening as he saw a very faint, fast ripple under the skin. He moved his hand back tentatively and felt the flutter again, barely discernible but definitely there, leaving an echo of sensation in the nerves of his palm.

"Alex?" he whispered, feeling ridiculously as if he might scare them into quiescence if he spoke too loud. "Alex?"

She was out completely, he realised, as not so much as a flicker of an eyelash in response. Had she been feeling that, from the inside? She hadn't mentioned movement. He couldn't take his eyes off her pale, smooth skin. A minute ago, he'd been thinking that she was pregnant. Now, in a way that was still spinning him around, that thought had changed. Now, she was carrying his children. They were in there, growing, but apart from her already. Independent, in a way. No longer passive but actively there. He shook his head at his own confusion of what to think about it.

Whether he was ready or not, he was going to be a father. The enormity of that still hadn't sunk in, not really. He recognised, a little self-deprecatingly, that he might not get it completely until they'd been born. And it would be a little on the late side to figure out how he felt about it then.

He pulled in a deep breath, watching her lift and subside with the movement, and tried to be honest with himself. _Scared_. He was, in a way that had no correlation with his life to this moment. Dying didn't scare him. Facing entities and creatures and power much stronger didn't scare him. Responsibility scared him only when he thought he might fail. And that was the key to this responsibility, wasn't it? Failing the woman he was holding, the children she was bearing? In a myriad of ways that he could hardly even imagine yet. Failing to protect. To be there. To give them what they needed.

_Failing to let them know how much he was going to love them._

He sighed very softly as his past rose around him. There'd been a lot of times when he'd been convinced that his father had no longer loved him. Times that he'd failed to protect his brother. Or had made a bad judgement and put them in danger. Occasional times when his father had seemed incapable of loving anyone or anything, drowning himself in the hunt and his frustrations at the lack of progress in bottles that stank out the rooms and removed every shred of caring from his face, from his eyes.

As an adult, he'd figured that John Winchester hadn't stopped loving his sons. But the memories of the child were still there.

This life, this chaotic and dangerous life they were in now wasn't going to slow down and let him get off. He wasn't going to be allowed to have safety and security, not for himself and not for them. He wasn't sure how the fuck he was going to live with that, he realised. Being afraid for them, all the time, was going to be the hardest gig he would ever have.

It didn't change anything, he thought abruptly. He wasn't going to walk away and he wasn't going to whine about it. And the peace she brought was worth it, worth the doubts and worries that he couldn't escape from when he wasn't right here. He thought better here, more clearly, more focussed on the actual problems, not the side-issues. He felt stronger, he knew, a bizarre contradiction that was somehow caused by the alchemy between them, her belief in him … and his need for her strength, for that unwavering conviction that she saw him as he was, every mistake and every scar, and she loved him for it all.

His breath shuddered out of him and he closed his eyes at the admission. No one had done that, not even his father. There was no expectation from Alex that she wanted anything other than what he already was. Who he already was.

* * *

_**Heaven**_

Raphael scowled as a small candle at the end of the quiet room leapt into flame. The demon was already exceeding his patience with the agreement he'd made with the Grigori, he thought, striding across to it and staring into the flame, not bothering to hide his displeasure.

He straightened as the flame went out, a thin tendril of smoke curling from the wick to the ceiling and turned away. If Castiel had helped Winchester to get into Hell, that changed many things. Michael might be prepared to listen to reason on the advisability of … discussing … matters more frankly with the outspoken and self-willed angel under that aegis.

It would take careful manipulation of both, he thought. The consent of a vessel, once given, could not be lightly removed. But all vessels held some compatibility to others, the bloodlines were few and the population had once been vast. He knew of two others who would be able to do the job. Only one of them was completely loyal to him, but one was precisely enough.

The demon was in a state of fury. He would march his army now. Closing his eyes, Raphael envisaged the whole of the lower plane, stretching his energy through the energy web of the planet, through the atmosphere and the ocean currents, feeling for where they moved, what they controlled. A short delay was needed, and the weather, always unpredictable to the hairless apes, would provide one.

Along the eastern coast of the continent that stretched from north to south, the current shifted slightly, moving out from the land and slowing down. In response, a system that would've travelled further west began to edge eastward, its frigid winds reaching out as the north-flowing warm water left the coast.

The archangel opened his eyes, still seeing the cloud patterns shifting under the changes he'd wrought. It would keep Crowley in Indiana for another week, he thought with a grunt of satisfaction. Long enough.

It did not occur to him that once the angels would have looked along the lines woven and maintained the balance between light and dark. It did not occur to him that once, such meddling in the affairs of humanity would have been punishable by death, and all Heaven bent in efforts to undo what had been done. In this time, there was no one watching the lines and no one to watch and report on changes that happened daily, by the minute. Everything was free-falling. He took it for granted that nothing he'd done had left even the most ghostly and intangible of prints that could lead back to him. As long as the man continued to change the lines, anything could be accomplished at any time.

* * *

_**Camp Atterbury, Indiana**_

Crowley scowled at the dark line on the northern horizon that was approaching the base rapidly. Convenient that a blizzard had arrived to underline Raphael's insistence that he have more time, he thought furiously. Convenient that it hadn't been driven here, according to Baeder and Dietrich, but seemed natural enough, an unforeseen shift in the Gulf Stream to the east and the system had been able to move on top of them.

_Convenient for Heaven._

He dragged the collar of his coat higher and spun on his heel, heading back indoors. The army was ready – as ready as they would ever be, he amended to himself sourly. The only thing in their favour was the abilities of the cambion. Had he realised that they were so powerful, he'd have rethought his plan of attack but of course Draxler had only pointed it out that morning. He'd seen the look of shock on Dietrich's face as well, and had seen the almost-invisible look of satisfaction in the half-breed's eyes as he'd turned away after dropping his bombshell.

It didn't matter, not in the long run. They had the list of names. They had almost two thousand men and women, armed and reasonably well grilled in what they would be doing. They had ordnance coming out of their backsides, he thought, looking around the icy, windswept base from the comfort of his office, the glass of whiskey in his hand. He would get the tablet and the Colt back and the Winchesters would be out of the picture permanently and plans would once again proceed as desired.

_And the lines would stop changing._

The Throne had told him something of the lines of destiny and the entities that spun and wove and cut, but not much. He didn't have the time he needed to just sit and absorb all the information he knew was held within it. What he did know was that what was happening right now, had never happened before, had been considered completely impossible.

The bloodlines of the compatible seraphim who had fallen with their Grace intact were limited to three lines. Araquiel. Azazel. Amaros. Only those descended from those three lines could produce vessels suitable for the Eighth Choir. And of those three, only two were able to produce vessels for Michael and Lucifer. Originally, as he'd come to understand it, it was only vessels that had been desired. Then someone in Heaven had discovered that one of the bloodlines could also be manipulated to another end. The breaking of the seals on the Cage in the ninth level. Specifically, the breaking of the first seal and the last one. A lot of careful manipulation – of Heaven and on the earthly plane, and in Hell – had been required to get exactly what was needed. And they had not seen the side-effect, the great, glaring elephant-in-the-room side-effect that was bringing them undone now.

"The storm will last only a couple of days," Baeder said from the doorway. Crowley glanced at him and nodded.

"It won't matter," he told the fallen angel. "Just a couple of days to eat, drink and be merry and then we'll be on the road."

Baeder's expression, at least on the side of his face that could hold expression, was stiff and disapproving, Crowley saw with an inward flicker of contentment.

"Lighten up, man," he told him with a cheeriness that grated further. "We'll have the prophet and the tablet, and the prophet will be able to give us the location of the angel tablet, and it'll all be roses, you'll see." He turned to the sideboard and poured a double into a crystal glass, picking it up and handing it to Baeder. "Have a drink, you'll feel better."

Baeder stared at him for a moment, then threw back the whiskey in a single gulp. Crowley winced.

"Once the main passes across the mountains have cleared, how long till your mates get over here?"

"Here or Boston?" Baeder asked coldly.

"Boston," Crowley clarified, resisting the urge to put a fist into his face.

"A few weeks," Baeder confirmed. "They will want the existing populations left intact, but we will need more of your demons to round up the creatures that have been turned."

"Yeah, Dietrich told me," Crowley said with an indifferent shrug. "Well, we'll see how we're getting on with the angel tablet before we commit ourselves to anything major."

The implicit rebuke in the statement again made the angel stiffen and Crowley turned away, hiding his amusement. He would be running this show and it would be better if the Grigori didn't persist in a delusion of partnership. He still needed to figure out a better answer for the cambion though.

* * *

Baeder stood rigidly in front of the window, staring at the snowflakes that blew almost horizontally across the empty parade ground, his hands clenched behind his back.

From the armchair several feet away, Dietrich watched him thoughtfully. The angel was almost out of control, he thought. Certainly ready to rip the King of Hell into small, unrecognisable pieces given the slightest opportunity.

"The gun will kill him," Baeder said, the words bitten out.

"Yes," Dietrich agreed. "But he will not allow it out of his sight, and you know that. The cambion can take him easily when the time comes."

"I want to see him surprised, Dietrich," Baeder said, turning slowly to face him. "And I want to see him suffering."

"I'm sure that can be arranged." Dietrich shrugged indifferently. "Eric, you need to rest. This is a good time –"

"Do not talk to me of rest," the fallen snapped. "I will rest when we have succeeded. Not before."

"You will burn out before then," Dietrich said mildly. He gestured to the nephilim who were gathered at the end of the room. "Ariana is willing. Shed some of your fury so that you are thinking clearly when we leave."

Baeder stared at him. "My thoughts have never been as clear as they are now, Dietrich. They are razor blades of clarity."

Dietrich exhaled softly as he watched him stalk out of the room. It was like watching the countdown to a bomb, he thought. The only question was if Eric would last the distance or blow himself up before they got to the end of the next task. He had a strong feeling that his brother would hang on long enough.

* * *

_**Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania**_

In the shelter of the dark wood, the snow fell almost straight, huge, fluffy flakes that clung to the windshield and clotted and froze together, the wipers flipping over them. Peter slowed again, swearing under his breath as Penemue wound down the window and half-crawled out to knock them off the freezing glass.

"We'll have to stop," Elena said, hunched in the seat between the _Irin_ and Peter and staring out at the darkening landscape.

Peter nodded grimly, his mouth thinning as the car idled forward and the fall grew thicker, covering the road in front of him.

The substation was almost invisible by the time they'd reached it. Shamsiel reached forward and gripped Peter's shoulder as they drove slowly past it, seeing the man-made geometry in the half-mantled shape between the thick trees.

"There."

Pulling over, they struggled through the deepening snow, loaded with the gear bags, to the iron door set in the front of the small building. Peter's hands stiffened in the cold as he worked the picks to free the lock. A single shot would have been quicker, Baraquiel thought, looking around the forest that surrounded them, but impossible to repair if they needed to lock anyone – or thing – out.

Inside, a narrow platform led to a set of brick steps that followed the wall down. Peter closed and locked the door behind them, and followed the Qaddiysh and Elena's flashlight down.

At the bottom of the stairs, Elena moved into the large, square room. On one wall, a number of boxes and boards showed the power coming in and going out, festooned with cobwebs and dark. On the far side, a broken pipe dripped water with a steady, surprisingly annoying plink into a shallow puddle below but the rest of the room was dry.

Peter dropped his bag to the ground, pulling out the small gas lantern and canister and lighting it and they set up a simple camp, moving without speaking, each well practised in their tasks.

"What now?" Shamsiel asked, looking at them as soup heated on the tiny stove.

Penemue looked over at the almost still pool in the corner of the room. "We should try to see what is going on."

Sighing, Shamsiel uncrossed his legs and got up, walking to the pool. Elena and Peter turned to watch him beside it, his hand moving a couple of inches about the surface as his eyes closed and he murmured something in a soft, sing-song language.

"What's he doing?" Elena asked, looking back at Penemue.

The _Irin_ smiled a little quizzically. "You are legacies of the Order, are you not?"

Her look of surprise, and Peter's flash of a grin stopped him.

"No, we are hunters," Peter said, glancing sideways at Elena. "Not scholars."

Penemue's brow rose. "I did not realise there was a difference?"

Elena laughed. "A huge difference, _mon ami_," she said, lowering her voice a little. "My family, for many, many generations, have been sworn to the _Chambre d'ombres_, that is our legacy, if you like."

Beside her, Peter nodded. "Mine also, were sworn as the weapons of the Church, for many hundreds of years now."

"But you are both –"

"Versed in lore?" Peter cut in with a smile.

"Yes, we know what we hunt, we know what we protect," Elena added, lifting a shoulder in a slight shrug. "But we do not study the patterns, Penemue – as I believe you do – you and your brothers?" She looked at Baraquiel, sitting by the vehicle, the black metal knife across his knees as he sharpened the edge smoothly.

Penemue nodded slowly. "We were asked to fall, by our Father. To protect and teach humanity. We have also been scholars and soldiers."

"Why did you fall?" Elena asked him curiously. "To be apart from Heaven, from your kin?"

"It was a great honour, to be chosen" Penemue answered, his gaze turning to Shamsiel. "And a great adventure, at the time. And I –" he cut himself off, shaking his head. "There was much we could learn from each other, I thought."

Peter watched the man's face carefully. "_And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose._"

The Watcher looked at him and smiled. "Yes, and there was that as well."

"You fell in love?" Elena looked at him. Penemue made a vague gesture.

"Does it not come to all, eventually?"

"Penemue!" Shamsiel's voice was a hiss across the room.

Penemue and Baraquiel got up, and Elena and Peter glanced at each other, rising after them. They walked to Shamsiel, crouching around him and looking into the pool.

On the surface, they saw a thickly covered snowscape, mounds and drifts rising in dunes, a wood to the left mantled in snow. Two children stood in the centre, holding hands, their free arms lifted and pointing ahead of them. Elena held her breath as she watched the snow melt and disappear in front of the children, steam billowing as the road on which they stood was revealed, a shining black ribbon curving between the snow banks. The children lowered their arms and walked forward, and behind them a vehicle drove over the newly cleared surface, broad tyres flicking moisture backwards. It was an open Army vehicle, a wide wheelbase and boxy shape identifying it easily as a HMMVV similar to their own. In it, three men and two women sat, warmly dressed, all carrying automatic weapons.

"Ashriel," Baraquiel breathed from beside her, staring intently at the images. "And Mossaque."

Penemue nodded. "Look at the lie of the shadows, they are heading west."

Behind the vehicle, a long line of trucks followed, men and women walking to either side, dressed uniformly in mottled grey and brown clothing, rifles slung over their shoulders, their faces impassive, their eyes black, from corner to corner.

"The demon's army is marching," Shamsiel said, his face screwing up as he forced his concentration on the scene shown in the water tighter. The army marched along the road, filling it from side to side, and they kept watching, the line showing no end.

On the side of the road, the melted snow revealed a green and white sign, battered and crumpled. All of them could read it. St Louis, one hundred and fifty miles.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Sam watched as Marla sat at the laptop, her fingers flying over the keys. To her left, the pile of the scratched and scrawled notes Chuck had been producing for the last few hours sat, red ink glaring out from the black handwriting. On the other side of the table, Alex was bent over the latest notes, reading through them, her brows drawn tightly together as she deciphered the atrocious handwriting and made the corrections. He had a pile of her corrected notes in front of him, checking that what she'd managed to pull out of the barely legible solid blocks of text was meaningful.

He'd been surprised when she'd turned up with Dean four hours ago, but grateful when it appeared that she could actually read most of the notes.

"_Two years working together in Chitaqua," she'd told him with a wry smile, dropping her coat and settling herself at the table. "But I'll need someone to check for the words that I'm not likely to know," she'd added, skimming over the first page_.

He'd nodded and their little prophet production line had worked smoothly since.

The printer on the other side of the room was printing the typed versions. Dean was sitting down in the situation room with Jerome and Father Emilio and Father McConnaughey, going through those. Bobby, Ellen, Rufus and Maurice would be over later, when they had more of an idea of what they had here.

So far, he thought, reading through the page in front of him, it was mainly lists. The hierarchies of Hell. Demon names and their respective responsibilities in the accursed plane. Briefly sketched histories of the major events. Jerome was grabbing those, he knew, and handing them to Aaron and Mitch to be entered into the order's histories.

"Sam," Alex said, staring at the page in front of her. "This looks like it's detailing protection spells."

"Dean!" Sam turned and called down to the other room, getting up and walking around the table to lean over her shoulder.

The spidery hand had been clarified where the words had become too illegible, Alex's neat printing in the red pen clear and filling in the gaps. She was right, he thought, looking at the complex diagrams interspersed with the text. He skimmed down the page.

Dean walked to the table. "What?"

"Protection," Sam said shortly. Walking behind his brother and Alex, Dean leaned on the table and started to read the pages. He looked over at Sam.

"I can get the trench-diggers from Franklin, but I got no clue about artefacts with psychic residue," he said, shaking his head.

"A mile west of Hays, there was a town called Rome. It was the original settling point for that area," Alex said, looking up at him. "In 1867, a cholera epidemic wiped out most of that town's residents and the rest relocated to Hays. Six months later, a group of settlers stopped there and they were murdered, at least a hundred and forty men, women and children. They were camping near the church. If you can find any of the building's foundations, or brick or stone from there, it will be enough."

Dean blinked at her. "How the hell do you know that?"

"The history part was a school project," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "But one of the projects Chuck was working on at Chitaqua was a correlation between mass death events and the gates to other planes … well, specifically to Hell. He was talking to Cas about it, and I was helping him research the larger events."

He looked at his brother. "Hays is about a hundred miles from here –"

Sam nodded, following the thought easily. "Vince can take the susvee, Jack, Chris and Lee," he said, turning to head back to the situation room and the radio. "Alex, did Chuck have the co-ordinates for that town in his files?"

"Yeah, he had them on the laptop. Mitch can get them," she said, getting to her feet.

Dean put his hand on her shoulder, and looked at her. "Stay here, keep reading, I'll tell Mitch."

Sam glanced back at them, slowing as he watched her sit down, his brother lean forward, speaking quietly to her. He was too far to hear what Dean said, but he saw something between them, something potent and intimate as Dean brushed his lips lightly over hers. The gesture was uncharacteristically tender and Sam turned away, feeling uncomfortably as if he'd intruded on something private, tinged with surprise at seeing it all. He walked to the radio, the image playing in his mind.

He heard Dean come down the steps a few minutes later, as Anson nodded that the transmission had gone through, and looked at the table where the priests were reading the typed notes.

"We've got stronger wards for the buildings, and stronger traps," Dean said without preamble, sitting down beside Father Emilio. Sam walked over to them, standing next to Father McConnaughey. "But there's still nothing on the cambion."

"How long can we have Alex for?" Sam asked his brother. Dean shrugged.

"She left the keep business to Maria and Fred, she can be here as long as Chuck keeps churning it out."

"Good." He looked down at Dean, another spurt of surprise hitting him as he realised that Dean actually looked relaxed, half-sprawled in the chair and questioning the two priests on their knowledge of the demon offspring. When had that happened?

"Sam, there's more," Alex called, and he turned to look up the stairs at her, nodding.

"This is talking about trapping souls – it doesn't relate specifically to demons, but it might have a bearing on the cambion, or even the nephilim," she said, handing the sheets to him. "It's possible Father McConnaughey might know something of this – he said something about the souls of the half-breeds give them their power, but are also their weakness?"

"Thanks," Sam said, gathering up the papers and taking them back down the stairs, sitting down at the situation table.

The men crowded around the corner of the table, reading the notes. Father McConnaughey looked up and shook his head.

"Emilio, we did know about this," he said, scowling. "The node stones."

"What node stones?" Sam looked at him.

"Jerome, are there node stones – any kind – here in with the artefacts?"

Jerome looked around from the computer screens and nodded. "We have a couple. Why?"

"There was a Romani story, centuries ago. And spells, I think. To trap the soul – and the mind – in a stone found from the nodes in the leys," he said shortly, getting up. "Would Oliver know where they are?"

Jerome nodded again. "They were in the apothecary store-rooms."

"Leys … ley lines?" Sam asked, looking at Father Emilio. The Jesuit rubbed a hand over his face.

"It was just a myth, but the Church had them too," he confirmed. "They're special crystals, with a lattice that does not occur frequently in nature. There was a spell, to draw any soul that crossed the stone into it."

"So we can trap the cambion that way?" Dean asked tightly. "Or a nephilim?"

Father Emilio shrugged. "If we have the stones and we can spell them correctly, yes."

"Let's do it," he said, getting up. "Sam, you got this?"

Sam nodded. "Where are you going?"

"I need to see Jackson and Riley about protecting our stores," he said, glancing up at the library table. "Alex was going to come as well, but she's probably better off here."

He looked back at his brother and saw the tacit request in his face. He nodded. "What did you have in mind?"

"If we can spare the stock, we'll use the stronger wards right over everything there," Dean said, pulling his jacket from the back of the chair and dragging it on. "Otherwise, we'll try and get as much hidden in the mine as we can." He turned for the stairs. "I'll be back in a couple of hours."

* * *

_**Lightning Oak Keep, Kansas**_

Ellen rubbed the fogged-over thickened glass of the window and stared outside, the gathering dusk hiding the woods to the south, the first few stars showing in the indigo sky.

"Franklin has two hundred, ready to be deployed," Rufus said, stretching back in the chair. "Not counting keep guards."

"Two hundred isn't going far," Bobby said tiredly, getting up to put a couple more logs on the bright fire in the hearth. "Chuck's vision showed a thousand, at least, probably more."

"We don't need as many numbers for defence as they need for attack," Rufus reminded him. "And now, we can take them out with the outer defences, especially any bigger weapons they might bring with them."

The populations of all five keeps had been working on the outer defences since Chuck had had the first vision, Liev managing siting and construction of the small forts that ringed the town in a mile radius from the protected holds. Each fort had Franklin's long-range artillery installed, dual targeting and defended with ten-foot thick stone and steel-reinforced walls. Under the foundations, deep tunnels had been dug to allow for whatever Crowley's army was bringing with them.

The army – on foot – could come from any direction. But the roads leading into Lebanon, except for the US-36 from the west, and the US-281 from the north, were mined, ten miles out from the town. Any vehicles would have to stay outside that range, and any weapons they were going to bring with them would have be humped across country by hand. It would, they hoped, reduce the possible damage that could be done to the keep walls and buildings. Each fort would have eyes on the roads. Each fort was in range of the two open roads with its guns. Each fort would be manned by twenty-five of Franklin's recruits, all of whom had done nothing but drill and practice with the armament since construction had begun.

"What about everyone else?" Ellen asked, turning back to them and drawing the soft knitted coat more closely around her. "And Michigan?"

Bobby moved over on the armchair as she came to sit beside him. "We've got no reason to think Michigan's in danger," he said, knowing she was worried. "And Boze called in yesterday, said that another big fall dumped more on them, couldn't even see the roads anymore. Nothing'll get through there until the thaw."

"Everyone is going to be on defence here, Ellen," Rufus added. "Those who can't fight will be making sure that the wounded are taken care of and there's enough food for those coming off the walls."

"Rufus, we have two hundred women here who are in their fourth month – that's just here, in the main keep there's more than five hundred –"

"Yeah, including you," Bobby growled at her. "Don't you think we've thought of this?"

It'd been the biggest shock of his life, when she'd come out of Kim's office and told him he was going to be a father. He hadn't known what to say, what to feel. And the man he would've gone to talk to about it had been under his own strain. Rufus had told him a little of his conversation with Dean. Ellen was near the high-risk end of the spectrum and neither had wanted to add their concerns to whatever the de facto leader was going through.

"There's a reason Liev built the tunnels, Ellen," Rufus said firmly. "If we can't hold them at the perimeter, then everyone who can't fight will be evacuated into the tunnels."

"We won't lose 'em," Bobby said, his arm curving around her hips. "The demons won't be able to cross the walls, no matter how many pieces they're in. Those wards are built into them, into the concrete and into the stone and the fill is all salt and pure iron. And we already know that if the cambion try to get in, they'll be after Chuck and the tablet, first and foremost."

"There's nothing to stop them from destroying us when they don't find him here," she said astringently.

"Just us," Rufus agreed readily. "We don't die so easy."

She looked away, her hand unconsciously creeping up from her lap to curl around her stomach. Twins, Kim had told her, the worry in her eyes held back but still there. She hadn't realised Bobby'd still be shooting live rounds. Hadn't really thought of herself as being fertile either, and probably, she thought, if things had been normal, she wouldn't have quickened, but things were such a long way from being normal that she no longer even remembered what normal looked like.

She'd told Jo a few days ago, glad for once that she couldn't see her daughter's face. She'd caught a faint edge to her voice, for a moment, as Jo realised that she wouldn't have her mother to help her through this, but that had vanished when they'd talked about the risk factor and the things that Ellen had finally allowed were worrying her. _Father of the Bride II_, Jo had jokingly said to her, Ellen mystified over the reference until she'd explained. She and Ty were having three, according to Bernice, Ray and Meredith, and they'd be the same age as their two aunts. It wasn't much of a joke, just the best her daughter could come up with given the circumstances and it made her smile a little now. At least Bill's genes would be carried forward. The thought brought a pang of sadness and she felt Bobby's arm close around her a little more firmly. Damned man could sense her feelings better than her daughter could.

"Besides," Rufus was saying and she looked at him, blinking against the pricking behind her eyes and forcing herself to concentrate on him again.

"We made it this far, Ellen," he said, draining his glass. "We can make it to the end zone."

Bobby tapped the plans in front of him. "This what we're taking to Dean tomorrow?"

"All of it, yeah," Rufus confirmed. "He's sent Vince and some of the kids down to Hays, grab that crap that's going to beef up the walls."

"Did they get back to you on the traps for the nephilim and the cambion?" Ellen asked.

"They've got two stones, Dean said," Bobby told her, turning to look into her face. "They'll use one at the keep and one at the safehold, and I want you at the keep when we get first warning."

She shook her head. "No, I'm staying here."

"No," he countered tightly. "You're not. Keep's got the best and strongest protection we can find. Chuck's translating the crap out of that stone but even with the sigils and the spells, without the ingredients we can't provide the same level of safety here. So … for my peace of mind, you'll be over there."

In his voice there was an entreaty and she heard it. _Don't fight me on this. Don't make me worry more'n I already am. Stay safe so's I got something to fight for_. They'd been over this twice already. This was her home and she wanted to be here, by his side. She'd let Bill go off and he hadn't come back. She wasn't sure she'd cope too well if that happened again. But for him, it was the same. He'd be too worried about her, about the family that he wanted more than he could say, if she was here.

Rufus cleared his throat. "Dean's already figured the roster for who's where once the sirens go, Ellen," he said casually. "You're going to be there, so if you want to fight with him about it …" he let the rest of the sentence trail off.

Ellen's lips pursed slightly. "Don't think I wouldn't if there weren't other considerations, Turner," she said shortly.

"Ah, would never think you'd take an order lyin' down, Ellen," he said with a crooked smile.

She glared at him but it was habit only. She'd seen Dean two days ago at the keep, and her winter clothing had hidden her news effectively until she'd taken off her coat. He'd seen the curving bump immediately, and had been genuinely happy for her and Bobby. She'd thought it might've added to his worries, but for the first time, she thought he'd been … alright. Better than alright, he'd been good. Confident and working through every problem smoothly, more relaxed than she'd ever seen him, that one-sided smile widening, the wary cynicism that had been shadowing his eyes ever since she'd met him … gone. Watching him, she'd seen him laugh with Ben, shrug off the minor difficulties that Mel and Nate had brought along to the meeting, figure solutions and when she'd come again and asked Bobby about it, he'd agreed straight away. He thought it was the impending prospect of being a father, but she remembered the way he'd been, before Lisa had died, and she didn't see it. He looked like a man who'd finally figured out his place in life, she thought. Finally found where he fit.

* * *

_**Ghost Valley Farm, Kansas**_

The three men walked across the bare fields to the woodland boundary, looking across the gently rolling hills as the sun inched higher above the horizon and the world turned from silver to gold.

"You think they'll come after the farms?" Riley looked at the distant buildings, shining white in the early morning light. "Come after us?"

"No," Dean said, shaking his head. "They might if they see resistance here, but if nothing's moving, they'll probably just leave them. They don't know that they won't be able to get in, even if they come." He looked to the left of the buildings and gestured to the squat, square tower sitting on a slightly higher hilltop a mile to the south. "And they'll be distracted," he added. "Franklin's got some heavy artillery on all the forts. They'll engage and cover the buildings for as long as they can. And the ammo is designed to take the meatsuits down, bind the demons inside them. You keep low, and use the tunnels, worst case, and you'll come out okay."

"What about our stores? We can forget the fucking wheat if there's an army trampling across the fields, but we've got seed in those silos." Jackson glowered at the silos near the buildings as if they were personally responsible for their vulnerability.

"I don't think they'll hit the silos or the barns," Dean said, following his gaze. "But we're not taking a chance with it. There'll be people coming for the next four days to move the seed stores to the basements and the tunnels. Leave whatever you think can be left, but get what we need for the future under cover."

The older man nodded sourly. "First really good year we've had in the last three and we get invaded," he grumbled.

"So long as we come out of it vertical, we can catch up," Riley said mollifyingly. "What about these goddesses, Dean. Another round by them, and we're either going to have to expand the holdings or figure on some sort of protection against the monsters, like we've got against the demons."

"Michel said he got a shot of the boat off the east coast, two weeks ago," Dean told him. "If they can find a vehicle, one that'll move in the snow, we might see the Watchers in the next couple of weeks. If they're slogging it out on foot, it'll be longer."

"Can we get rid of them, for good I mean?" the lanky farmer asked, tucking his gloved hands into his pockets.

Dean snorted. "The box is a transdimensional doorway, Riley," he said disparagingly. "Now you know as much about it as I do."

"Used to love sci-fi as a kid," Riley grinned at him. "I'll take your word for it."

Dean laughed, turning to scan the fields for the boy. He saw Ben near the edge of the woods, whistling and waving as he turned toward them.

"Let me know if there's anything you need."

"Yeah, we'll do that," Jackson grunted. He looked at the windswept sky mistrustfully. "Should be getting a thaw now."

Dean walked beside him, hearing the crunch underfoot. "Not unusual for a long winter, though?"

"No, but this is the third one like this we've had in a row."

The words triggered a memory of a memory in Dean's mind and he hunched deeper into his coat, trying to drag it out. Like most of the memories that weren't related directly to family, a hunt or the situation at hand, it refused to come and be looked at, fading away to nothing as he saw Ben's face.

"What?"

Ben frowned a little, looking up at Jackson. "No one's hunting in the woods this morning, are they?"

Jackson shook his head. "No, son, why?"

"I thought I saw someone in there."

Dean felt himself tense slightly. "Without looking over there, can you describe where?"

"Two hundred yards from the fenceline and three hundred from the corner post, behind that oak that grew bigger than the rest," Ben said quickly.

"Good, okay," Dean said, catching his lower lip between his teeth as he mentally reviewed what he was carrying with him today. "You go inside with Jackson and Riley," he told the boy, glancing sideways at the farmers. "All completely natural, nothing going on, right?"

"Right," Ben said quickly.

Riley lifted his face to catch the sun. "Not going in on your own," he said casually.

Dean grinned humourlessly. "Yeah, I've done this a few times, Riley. You keep the people here safe."

* * *

He kept to the shadows, and the damp ground, in between the trees where the snow had fallen but didn't lay on the ground, the rich humus muffling his footsteps, the mottled grey, brown and white jacket hiding his outline. The medallion lay warm against his chest and his mind was empty and cold.

Dean saw the man, lying beneath the low, sweeping branches of the conifer, binoculars pressed to his face, and stopped. He pressed his shoulder to the rough tree trunk beside him, his gaze moving over the prone figure, over the area surrounding him slowly and cautiously, watching and waiting for any sign of a partner. After ten minutes, neither of them had moved an inch and he was reasonably sure the man was alone – at least in this part of the wood. He had the feeling that there were others, on the outskirts of the land they'd pushed into, watching as this one was.

The barrel of the automatic flicked up and the shot rang out in the silent forest, followed by a shrill scream of pain. He straightened up, stepping out from the tree and walking unhurriedly to the man, who rolling on the ground, one arm limp, the other wrapped over his chest, hand clutching at his shoulder as blood leaked out between his fingers, the glasses dropped and forgotten beside him.

"Hey," Dean said brightly, stopping beside him.

The man's mouth opened wide, his eyes bulging slightly as he attempted to force a way out, but nothing happened. Dean nodded understandingly.

"Binding sigil, on the bullet," he explained, dropping to one knee beside him and driving his thumb close by the wound, eliciting another shrill and breathless shriek. "We've been fooling around with a few rounds," he continued conversationally, glancing at the wound. "These are modified hollow-points. Makes sure they stay in."

The man's eyes were a flat black, corner to corner. "You gonna kill me? Do it then!"

The small lift of one side of Dean's mouth didn't really resemble a smile. "Kill you? Hell, no," he said. "Gotta ask some questions, first."

"You're wasting your breath, Winchester," the demon spat at him. "I'll take whatever you've got over Crowley any day."

"Well, we'll see how you feel about that," Dean said mildly, his fingers digging into the shoulder and lifting the man from the ground as he straightened up. "I got some free time."

"I ain't tellin' you nothin'," he snarled, stumbling forward as the wire caught at his ankles, forcing him into a shuffling trot.

"Yeah, well, you probably think that you've got the whole pain thing down, after Hell," Dean told him, pushing a little harder. "But the thing about flesh and blood is the variety. There're a helluva lot of ways to take it to the limit up here in the real world."

He drew out the knife from its sheath behind his hip. The demon stared at it, following the movement as Dean turned the blade to look along the edge.

"You know what this is?"

"Yeah."

"How many more hiding out here?" Dean asked, pushing him casually back against the tree.

"Go ahead, do what you want!"

The tip slid easily in through the muscle and sinews between shoulder joint and collar bone and the top of the rib cage and Dean turned the blade slowly. The demon's scream sent a flock of birds flapping into the sky at the other end of the woods, and dissipated into a series of breathless moans as the blade withdrew.

"How many?"

"Fuck you!"

"Not my type," he quipped, slicing across the demon's abdomen, the jacket and clothing beneath fluttering, the edges turning red as the curving tip split skin and fat slowly. Watching the face, Dean saw a gradual recognition dawning in the eyes, and he nodded encouragingly.

"You know what I did in Hell?" he asked it, pushing a little deeper as he made a second cut below the first.

"Alastair's pet!"

Dean smiled, his eyes arctic. "How many?"

The meatsuit was shuddering deeply, the nervous system dealing with too many reports of injury and the demon couldn't suck in enough air to answer. Dean dropped a little, slicing through the hamstring at the back of the knee, the demon sagging suddenly as the leg gave way, a burst of reddened spittle exploding from its mouth with the high-pitched squeal.

"I can leave you here tonight," Dean said, straightening up. "Wolves have been around, they won't care if you're still in there when they start to chow down."

"Four!" it shrieked at him, dropping to the ground. "There're four others."

"Where?"

"Five mile radius around the town," it gasped, lifting its hand as a bloody froth dribbled from the corner of its mouth.

"What'd you tell Crowley?" Dean asked, his gaze moving from the demon.

"Nothing, just a grunt, wasn't in contact!"

"Really?" He stepped back and kicked at the small, bronze goblet half-hidden in the undergrowth. "Why've you got a squawk-box?"

The demon rolled its eyes, tipping its head back against the tree trunk. "You'll kill me? If I tell you?"

"Quick as can be," Dean agreed, the blade catching the strengthening light through the thin branches as he dropped to a crouch.

"Everything."

"Everything?"

"The forts, the mines, the farms, the guns, the training," the demon said, hawking a throatful of blood and spitting it out. "Been here a month."

"Since we hit the Grigori?"

"Yeah, Crowley knows everything you've done," the demon agreed. It lifted its head and looked at him. "So … kill me."

The knife was reversed and in the air before the last word, burying itself to the hilt in the demon's chest. Red-gold light boiled in the vessel, spilling out through the cuts and tears, flooding from mouth, eyes and nose. It died away and Dean stood up, leaning over to brace his hand against the shoulder and drag the knife clear. He wiped the blade absently on the demon's jacket and slid it back into the sheath.

_Everything_. It wouldn't change the plan, he thought, looking around the clearing. They could sweep and pick up the others and put some booby traps in along the woods that marked the boundaries of every keep and the farms.

It wouldn't change a thing. He walked back through the trees, feeling the sunlight dappled and patterning his back. There was nothing Crowley had learned that would enable to alter his plan of attack, and their defences were stronger now, with the blood sigils from the tablet.

He felt the back of his neck prickle and pushed the feeling of unease aside. Chuck was wrong. The visions were wrong. He and Sam would be here and they'd take whoever the demon and the fallen tried to send in and they'd be here, protecting the population and keeping them safe.

_What the prophet has written can't be unwritten. As he has seen it, so it shall come to pass._

The angel's word echoed ominously in his head and his expression flattened out to a dark scowl. _Well, this would be the exception that proved the rule_, he thought mulishly. He'd just found what he needed, found what he'd been searching for, and he wasn't going to risk that, wasn't going to take a chance with it. He'd be here and they would have to fucking well come through him.


	13. Chapter 13 As It Has Been Foretold

**Chapter 13 As It Has Been Foretold**

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

Looking down at the plans spread over the long table, Maurice wondered if their defences would be enough. The gun towers and mines were one thing, he thought, but the actual protection for the population was going to be entirely different.

"Frank, what artillery do we have on the towers?" he asked the grizzled soldier, looking across the table.

"We picked up fifteen Howies," Franklin said, leaning across to the tap the map. "We got 'em mounted on every tower and every fort. Along with that, we got two mortars per tower."

"And they're firing what?" Ellen looked across from the desk.

"Modified shells," Franklin answered shortly.

His apprentice, Tony, nodded enthusiastically. "We smelted the pig iron with salt and cast shrapnel, every piece is engraved with that symbol that'll bind whatever it hits into its meatsuit."

Elias looked over at him, one brow lifted. "Every piece? What's the load?"

"They're the size of nickels," Franklin said with a cold grin. "But not round. They'll scatter effectively."

"Once the demon is bound, anything that can destroy the mobility of the meatsuit will keep them out of the action," Dean said, raising his voice a little so that everyone could hear him. "That's not the problem," he added, looking over the map. "Crowley knows where our guns are, and where the mines have been laid."

"We've added a strip to each of the woods surrounding the keeps," Franklin told him. "If they avoid the roads and fields, they'll still get hit and those were all repacked as well."

"Chuck wrote that the army spread around the keeps," Father Emilio said quietly. "He didn't give an estimate and it's impossible to know how many survivors the demon could have possibly found, but in the subsequent descriptions of the way the surrounding countryside was trampled, I believe we're probably facing more than a thousand."

"We got two hundred pretty well trained spread over the five keeps here," Franklin pointed out tersely to the priest. "And another five hundred per keep who're under their orders. This is going to be siege, not an assault, and the forts'll keep 'em off the farmlands we can't protect in person."

Father Emilio nodded appeasingly. "I understand that, Franklin, I'm more concerned about what they're coming to here find."

"The tablet, gun and Chuck are tucked away in the order safehold," Dean said, frowning at him. "That's protected against the nephilim and the safe is in the stone trap."

"If they decide they want leverage against you, Dean, who will they attempt to take to force you into giving up the tablet? Not Chuck." The Jesuit looked expressionlessly at him and he looked back at the map.

"Sam'll be with Chuck," Dean replied tightly. "Alex, Ben and Ellen'll be here, in the medical offices." He looked back at Father Emilio. "There's protection against the nephilim on the floor and walls and door and we set the second stone in the doorway."

Rufus watched the priest shrug, apparently somewhat satisfied. "We've got a couple of weeks before they can move, and that's the earliest prediction based on the GOES information," he said, clearing his throat as he looked at Dean. "Just 'cause they know some of what we got, doesn't mean they'll get through it any easier."

Dean straightened up, his face cold as he stared at the preparations.

"Now, that's defence," Franklin said, turning to Mitch. "We also got communications up."

Looking around at the hard-faced men and women who filled the room and were all staring at him, Mitch swallowed.

"Uh, yeah," he started, gesturing to the woman standing a little behind him. "This is Deidre, and we've, uh, been rerouting the phone lines and using the older style PABX key stations. Because most of the line is still intact, we've connected all five keeps, although not everyone has a private line. We're trying to get a routed plan for communications with Michigan but that's gonna take longer."

"We got phones?" Bobby asked, brows shooting up beneath the brim of his cap. "Since when?"

"Since about three hours ago," Deirdre told him, her expression impatient . "We ran the first successful tests out to Crows Nest with an exchange transfer to Ghost Valley." She was in her late-forties, small and bone-thin, dark hair cut very short and bright blue eyes. "We've also had a successful non-recorded dry run on the digital video cameras set up at the outer defences."

"What we need is personnel," Mitch continued, looking from Rufus to Dean. "Strategically, if we can keep comms open no matter what's going on, we're in a better position to change tactics on the fly."

Franklin nodded. "Anson's already training three more to take six-hour shifts here, but we'll need at least those hunters and trainees who are going to be seconded to the defence lines as well. Twelve altogether for all the stations."

Dean shrugged, glancing at Rufus and Bobby. "No problem, grab who you want."

The older hunters nodded. "What are the lines available?" Bobby asked.

"There're open sockets in the offices of every keep, for strict use by the leaders of the keeps. Here, we've got four open sockets – this office," he paused as heads turned expectantly to the desk, looking for a handset. It sat discreetly next to the lamp, looking so ordinary that no one had realised they hadn't had one for the last three and a half years. "We installed a line in Kim's office for medical emergencies and there's one in your quarters," Mitch said, looking at Dean, then turning to Rufus. "And yours. Just in case anyone needs to get hold of you fast."

"What about the exchange and monitors?" Rufus growled, liking the idea of being called in his private time less and less as he remembered the tyranny of the telephone.

"The main exchange is here, in the store-rooms on the second basement level," Deirdre told him. "The order has an exchange plugged into their existing comms. The others are passive." She took a breath, gesturing vaguely. "This is all hard-wired, you understand? We had to plug it all in manually."

"I don't suppose you managed to hook into a satellite that'll give us the army's exact position in the last three days?" Nate asked her dryly.

"You didn't give us enough time to check that," Deirdre fired back at him without blinking. Dean ducked his head to hide his grin.

"How much warning do the cameras give us?" he asked.

"Fifteen minutes," she told him, glancing at Mitch for confirmation. The teenager nodded.

"Not much," Bobby said heavily.

"It's enough," Dean countered. The keeps were about a mile from each other. Even getting people from one to the other could be managed in that time frame, if everyone was on the ball. And it would certainly be enough time to get the guns ready, prepped, locked and loaded. Once they were firing, everyone would know that it had started, comms or not.

* * *

It would make a huge difference to be able to talk to people straight away instead of using runners, Dean thought as he walked down the hall toward the keep doors. Alex was still over at the order and he still needed an update on the latest tablet findings.

The Jesuit knew where to hit. The people he loved were as protected as he could make them, and the thing he hadn't said out loud in the room was that he'd be there, with them, between them and the enemy. It'd still hit him, the thought of them being used, hurt or threatened to force him into handing over the tablet and the gun. Crowley would certainly have noticed it missing by now.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Sam looked at the reams of paper sitting in the overflowing trays beside Marla. She'd taken four hours break, Oliver filling her place and typing non-stop as Chuck had kept writing, and looking at her hands, he was surprised she could keep going, they were swelling a little from the constant movement.

On the other side of the long table, Alex was reading, her pen skittering down the page as she stared at the words, making corrections and writing out the less understandable phrases above the prophet's roughly scratched sentences. She re-read the paragraph she'd just corrected for sense and looked up at Sam.

"Sam, I think this might be referring to the gates."

He ran a hand back through his hair, leaning across the table as she passed him the sheet, her hand already reaching for the next when he took it.

Skimming over the words, he saw the section she meant near the bottom.

_For when Adam's sons and daughter have grown to their potential, there will be no need for the realm of punishment. Only one will be able to close the plane. Only one will purified in the completion of the trials. Only one will be tested unto death._

He stared at the notes, feeling a trickle of sweat zigzag down the back of his neck.

"Alex, are you sure about this last bit?" he asked her, holding out the page. She looked over at it and nodded.

"That's what he wrote," she said. "Chuck might be able to clarify these when he stops?"

He saw the fear at the back of her eyes, heard the slight tremor that was almost but not quite hidden in her voice. For a moment they stared at each other, their minds filled with the same, single thought.

"Maybe," he said, blinking and looking away. "Is that all?"

"No, there's more," she told him, looking back at the page in front of her and reading to the end, the sound of the pen on the paper loud in the room. Oliver had left the laptop, and Sam looked around, belatedly hearing the young man's footsteps behind him as he crossed the situation room floor and began to climb the stairs.

"Here." She passed him the next page and he started to read, his face screwed up as he concentrated on every single word, not hearing the door open or the bootsteps coming back down the stairs.

"Making progress?" Dean asked as he walked up the steps to the room. Alex nodded without looking up, Sam didn't move at all. "Don't everyone tell me at once."

Sam grunted and looked up at him. "Chuck seems to have hit the bit about closing the gates."

Dean looked at him, seeing the worry in his brother's face. "Good news, right? What's the downside?"

"Sit down," Sam said, passing him the two sheets.

Taking them, Dean dropped into the chair opposite Alex, reading them aloud under his breath.

"_For when Adam's sons and daughter have grown to their potential, there will be no need for the realm of punishment. Only one will be able to close the plane. Only one will purified in the completion of the trials. Only one will be tested unto death_." He felt Sam's gaze on him, and kept reading.

"_The contender will complete the trials or perish. A new contender may not begin until the contract has been broken. The contract begins when the first trial has been completed_."

Looking up, he shrugged. "So once I've started, I can't back out, that's fair."

Sam's brow creased up, his face pained. "Keep reading."

"_The accursed plane is guarded by the infernal wolf_." Cerberus, he thought fleetingly. "_The wolf must be destroyed before the contract can be made_."

He put the paper down, his memory of the dog pacing along the river bank looming into his mind's eye. With the medallion, he'd be able to get close enough, he knew. Killing the sonofabitch was a more demanding task. Would the demon knife do it? Would it even get through the thick fur and muscle of the creature, he wondered? It didn't have a long blade. He didn't think, visible or not, that Cerberus would let him stand there and stab at him until he found a fatal spot.

"That it?" he asked Sam, glancing at Alex. She was still reading, brows drawn together in a frown of concentration.

Sam snorted disbelievingly and nodded. "The tablet isn't written in a linear progression," he said, his gaze going to Alex as well. "It's all mixed together."

"First job, kill Cerberus then," Dean said, getting up. "That's do-able."

"Maybe," Sam allowed. "But Dean –"

He knew the sticking point his brother was trying to bring up. "Sam, bottom-line, if Hell is shut down, that's half our problems solved for good, right?"

Alex looked up at him, her expression neutral. "It might not be that simple."

"Nothing ever is," he agreed, looking at her.

"This tablet, these … instructions … were designed to be used at the time humanity had evolved enough not to need Hell or Heaven any longer," she said, ignoring his flippancy. "They're not just about shutting the gates to keep the demons in."

"And?"

"No souls will go to Hell either, Dean," Sam explained shortly. "The whole plane would be closed."

"Problem with that?"

"Humanity hasn't evolved," Alex said dryly. "You might be exchanging one problem for another."

He looked from her to his brother, the implications sinking in. "Huh."

"There're some references to shutting the gates without closing Hell completely," she continued, gesturing at the piles beside Marla. "We haven't collated all of that yet, Katherine and Jasper are working on it."

He nodded. He hadn't thought much about the process of the other planes, other than to curse their constant fucking around with his world. But the souls of those who deliberately committed evil were sent to Hell for a reason. Having them unable to move on from this world would present an interesting increase in work for the hunters – or create no-go zones for the population if the bones couldn't be found and burned.

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

The question lay unasked between them. He'd heard it in the deep silence on the way back. Had tasted it in the unspoken grief of her kiss. Felt it in the lingering poignancy of her caresses, a bitter edge to the pleasure that immersed them, an unfulfilled yearning ache left behind in their sated bodies and senses.

Unasked and unanswered.

She would never ask, he knew. Would never put herself between him and what he thought was the best thing to do. Whatever choice he made would be his alone.

She was facing away from him, and Dean inched closer, his arms curving around her, warm skin to skin down the length of their bodies. Would he? Give this up, sacrifice everything he'd gained, everything he wanted? Everything he'd ever wanted?

_Test unto death_, the tablet said, and that didn't seem all that ambiguous. An act of faith? Or just an offering, the life of one for the good of the many? He wasn't sure. Six months ago, a year ago, he'd've made that decision without reflection, sure that it was a worthwhile trade. Up until now, that was all he'd done, made the sacrifices to ensure that the fight was won, that people could live their lives in safety, as tenuous as that had been, in peace.

And it hadn't been much of a sacrifice, had it? He hadn't had anything he'd really wanted, anything that tested his choice between life and death.

He could feel her ribs, rising and falling shallowly, could hear her breath, softly whispering. Now, he had everything to lose.

_There is a right and a wrong here and you know it!_ He remembered yelling at the angel when it had become apparent that Heaven was doing everything in its considerable power to effect the rising of the devil. To save his brother, to save the world, he'd been prepared to go into a battle he'd been sure he couldn't win. And, he knew, if it were solely about saving the people here, saving his family, he would feel the same way. But it wasn't, was it. It was about giving up his life to an abstract. To the possibility, not the certainty, of saving them.

And didn't he get to have what he wanted, he wondered bleakly. _Ever?_ Because that was the price as well. Leaving his family unprotected. Turning his back on what he needed. To save a world that had, to date, shown precious little gratitude?

_I'll do whatever I have to do, I'll storm fucking Hell if that's what's needed, but only if you bring her back._

His words echoed back to him and he dragged in a deep breath. A lifetime of making deals without thinking what they meant haunted him. He'd lived with an almost impervious sense of his own mortality, never quite believing he'd die, no matter how thoroughly he tried to convince himself that he could. But … going into the fight knowing for sure, that was different, wasn't it? Knowing that he would have to give up to win. Knowing that she would be alone, raising his kids on her own. Knowing that he would never see them.

This was his father's legacy to him, he thought uncomfortably. The fierce and unyielding protection of family. John Winchester wouldn't have walked into the fire willingly if he and Sam had still needed him, still needed his strength, he knew that too. He'd done it because they'd been men and he couldn't face living with one of them dead.

Crowley wanted to control everything. Meg had told him that the demon wouldn't stop. And Father McConnaughey had told him of the messenger – the _angel_ – he'd encountered. The gates had to be closed before Crowley could get any further, before the archdemons could get loose. That was a warning he couldn't ignore.

She loved him. Not in the abstract and not knowing what he'd done, and felt and who he was. She knew, right down to where he lived and the peace that filled him right now, wrapped around her and breathing in the scent of her skin, of her hair, the certainty he had in those feelings was something he couldn't give up. Didn't want to give up. He was acutely aware that if he told her he would do it, she wouldn't argue, wouldn't try and make him change his mind, wouldn't even hold it against him in any way. A part of him wished that wasn't the case, wished for anger and a chance to fight it out.

It was, he thought sourly, typical of every decision he'd been forced into. Brought back to health by a reaper who'd killed another in his place. His father cheating Death with the deal with Azazel. The deal to save Sam's life. Giving up the part of himself he'd believed in to ease the pain only to find the cost had been much higher than he'd suspected, the cost had been breaking the first seal. Forcing himself into a cock-eyed understanding of Ruby and Sam's need for her, right up until the moment that he'd known they'd both been suckered. If he gave up his life to protect them, to lock up the demon king and every other hellspawn, who the fuck would be there when something else raised its ugly head and came looking for Winchester line?

_No._

Not this time, he thought, a slow burning fury at the forces that had been manipulating him and his brother since before they'd been born rising through him. He wasn't giving up everything he wanted and leaving them without anyone to make sure they were safe. He wasn't going to keep repeating the mistakes of the past. _Not this time_.

"No," he said aloud, a whisper against her neck. He felt her tense slightly against him, moving back a little as she rolled over in his arms.

She didn't ask him what he meant, just looked up at him, her eyes searching his. He smiled into them, brushing his mouth over her lips, the light touch flooding him with heat, answered in her as her hands slid up over his chest, wound around his neck. The sadness had gone from her touch and he was abruptly, fiercely, glad for that.

She drew back from him a little. "Are you sure? Crowley –"

He knew she'd gone over everything as he had, gone over it all with the knowledge of how he would feel if it was the wrong call. He shook his head slightly.

"I'll figure out another way," he said quietly. "There'll be another way."

"But –"

He kissed her, stopping the words and the doubts decisively. He'd never been so certain of a decision, he realised in bemusement. Never felt such a lift of the weight that habitually crushed him with a choice made. It was the right thing – the only thing – to do.

It was different again. The thought, as thick as molasses in January, barely touched him through the clamour of sensation that spread and flowed and trembled in every muscle.

Only this time, he knew why.

He tried to draw in a breath and couldn't, hips arching up as the muscles of his back and legs contracted sharply. Tried to hold on, sharp pulses around him robbing him of any conscious decision. Every rippling burst amplified feeling and he lost the division between them, lost who he was, lost everything as she clenched around him, vibration in his chest and against the inside of his lips dragged out of him before he was aware of it, the almost-unbearable ache exploding into release that shook through him, reaching every fibre, every cell.

The aftershocks dissipated slowly, small catherine wheels of pleasure fizzing out along sensitised nerve-endings. He could breathe again, could hear and see again, the images he hadn't known he'd seen replaying randomly against the blackness of his closed eyelids, drawing the dissolution of sensation out that little bit longer.

He'd let go completely, surrendered himself without the slightest thought or desire for self-protection, had put his trust in her without reservation, as nakedly vulnerable as it was possible for him to be. His lips found her temple, tasting the faint salty sheen of perspiration over her skin, listening to the soft whisper of her breath, feeling it along his skin. Nothing was going to stop him from having this, he thought. Not heaven and not hell.

* * *

_**Chambre d'ombres, France**_

"She's moving again," Michel said, staring at the situation table in the centre of the room. The green flash that was designated to the dark goddess was moving slowly across China, angling north as it headed for the eastern coast.

Alain walked over and looked at its progress. "Does she walk over the water?"

"Not that I've seen," Michel said. "At least not across the oceans."

"So she's heading for the Bering Strait?"

Michel nodded. "That's where she crossed before."

"Do we have any data for the northern latitudes, Michel?" Francesca asked, joining them at the table.

"Not a lot," Michel admitted. "The satellite's orbit is elliptical; I get a little with each pass but more in the lower latitudes. Why?"

"This winter," she said slowly, her gaze fixed on the map. "And the last three … the snow did not melt until late in the year. I am wondering if the albedo would have an effect on the patterns."

"Of course, but we haven't seen a fluctuation beyond the normal range," he told her.

She nodded. "Just wondering."

"Can we let Jerome know that Nintu is return to Alaska?" Alain asked, his gaze shifting from the enigmatic legacy to the table. "Peter and Elena will probably be another couple of weeks, but they should prepare for a place to intercept her?"

"Yes," Michel agreed, focussing on the goddess' movement. "By the time they can move around easily, she will be back in the US."

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

Bobby leaned against the side of the window frame, looking out over the patchy snow that was very slowly melting and turning into icy slush through the bailey. The whole countryside would be saturated and boggy in another week, he wasn't sure if that was going to help or hinder them with Crowley's army.

"Did Boze say anything about the airforce base in Ohio?" Dean asked Rufus, leaning back in the chair behind the desk, his boots propped on the edge of the desk. Sam sat in the chair near the fire, head tipped back and eyes closed. He'd been working around the clock on Chuck's transcripts.

"Nada," Rufus said, shaking his head. "They checked it out thoroughly, everything that could be eaten, was."

Something had changed in Dean, Bobby thought, eyes narrowing very slightly in the shadow of the brim of his cap. Something had shifted for the younger man and he couldn't pinpoint what it was. He was crackling with energy again, radiating a confidence that seemed to have no visible or easily imagined source. They were still going to be attacked by thousands of demons, under the control of the King of Hell and the fallen who'd served with Lucifer. But it didn't seem to worry the hunter at all.

"Not that we have time to go grab a couple of planes, even if they'd found any intact," Bobby commented sourly to them.

"The pilots are still there," Dean countered, looking at him with a lop-sided grin. "If we find anything we can drop bombs from, it'd give us an edge."

The papers on the desk fluttered suddenly and they looked at the angel standing in the centre of the room. Castiel's face was screwed up with anxiety.

"Dean, Raphael is here," he blurted out, staring at the man. "On this plane."

"Okay," Dean said slowly, lifting his feet from the desk and getting up. "And?"

"And I need your help," Cas said, glancing from him to Sam. "We can trap him, force him into surrender – but I can't do it alone!"

"Where exactly is he, Cas?" Sam asked, rising as well and walking to stand beside his brother.

"Illinois, possibly to meet with the Grigori."

"Illinois's two states over, Cas," Dean said, gesturing vaguely to the east. "We got things we have to do here. And I'm not sure how much help we can be when it comes to trapping an archangel?"

"Dean, if Raphael surrenders to Michael now, then I will be able to convince him to bring the Host to your aid," Cas growled.

Dean felt the attention of Sam, Rufus and Bobby sharpen on him at the words of the angel. Michael turning up with a few thousand angels would certainly change the dynamics of things.

"How long will it take?"

"Not long, we could be back before midnight," Cas said, looking from the others back to him. "This is our one chance –"

He nodded brusquely. "Yeah, you said that."

Looking at Sam, he lifted a brow. "Well?"

"We've got time," Sam said, glancing at the older hunters for confirmation. Both Rufus and Bobby shrugged.

"Alright, but we have to be back here before morning," Dean warned the angel. For a moment, as Cas looked at him, he felt a prickle on the back of his neck. The angel's eyes … looked different somehow.

Cas nodded and the moment of disorientation passed, the gravelly voice commanding as he stepped close to the Winchesters and his hands reached out to grip their shoulders. "We will."

They disappeared, the beat of wings echoing around the room and the papers fluttering on the desk as the air rushed in to fill the spaces they'd been.

"Think Michael will honour that?" Rufus turned and asked Bobby curiously.

The old man pushed back his cap, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "No idea," he said, brows drawing together a little. There'd been something off about the angel, but he wasn't sure if it just the urgency of the situation or something else. Castiel was usually pretty damned circumspect about promising Heaven's help.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Marla stared at the page beside her, her fingers sore, hitting the keys steadily. She didn't notice Chuck's hands slip off the stone to her left, or hear the small thud as it hit the table. Or see his eyes open wide.

He gasped and she stopped, staring at him. Three days he'd been sitting there, not eating or drinking or sleeping, just writing and the hollows in his thin face were pronounced, the purple and grey-tinged shadows that filled his eyesockets dark and deep. The blue eyes were staring at her, she thought at first, her heart leaping into her throat, settling as she realised he was staring through her, not at her.

"Chuck?"

"The army," he said, his voice cracked and raw. "They're crossing the river."

"Which river, Chuck," Jerome said, Marla registering the soft burr of the wheelchair's tyres over the hardwood floors belatedly as he came up behind her.

"Columbia," Chuck said, blinking rapidly as he looked down at the pen in his hand, the loose piles of paper surrounding him. "Keyboard!"

Marla stood and cleared the notes around him, pushing the laptop in front of him, his gaze focussing on the backlit screen as he typed.

"The army is crossing the Missouri River," he muttered furiously, the images still playing out behind his open eyes. "Over two thousand, walking beside the trucks and trailers."

Jerome's head snapped around to the slender woman standing beside him. "Call the keep, get hold of Dean or Rufus and tell them." He looked back at Chuck. "How long till they get here, Chuck?"

"Days, a few days," Chuck murmured, the visions transferring from his mind to the screen without volition. "The fallen are pushing them hard, no rest, no stops, the demons ride all of them and force them faster."

The legacy nodded, swivelling the chair and pushing himself across to the hall. "Mitch!"

He heard the footsteps of the young man thudding in the hall, realised he'd been sleeping when he burst through the doorway, hair sticking out in all directions.

"Chuck's back, he's having a vision – a more normal vision," he amended, wondering if that term could even be applied anymore. "Take care of him."

Mitch nodded and walked to Chuck's side, his face tightening as he read the words over the prophet's shoulder.

Turning again, Jerome went down the ramp as Marla put the handset down. "You get through?"

She nodded. "Dean wasn't there, but I spoke to Rufus."

"Good," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Good. Can you tell Aaron and Jasper that we need them, please?"

She nodded, striding across the room for the hall and the stairs.

* * *

_**Olney, Illinois**_

The clearing still held the last of the light, the sky overhead shading from rose to palatinate blue along the horizon, the first stars visible in the darkening east.

"Cas?" Sam said, looking around. "What's going on?"

Dean turned, seeing the angel's mouth quirk up to one side. It was an expression he'd never seen Castiel use, a slightly derogatory smile that came close to a sneer. In the clear light, he realised that the angel's eyes weren't the right colour. Jimmy Novak's eyes were blue, but when the angel was in possession they deepened to the colour of the open ocean, a dark, clear blue. Looking at them in the luminous dusk, they were neither Novak's nor Castiel's.

"You're not Cas, are you?" he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and taking a step away from his brother.

"No," the angel agreed readily. "Not even close."

"How is it you're in Jimmy?" Sam asked, catching up quickly and seeing what Dean was intending.

"Oh, Cas has been detained," the angel said, glancing heavenward. "And most vessels are compatible with a few of us."

"That's funny, not what we heard." Dean stared at him.

"Oh you two, you're different," the angel said, smiling humourlessly at him. "But even for Lucifer and Michael, they have suitable substitutes, as you know."

"So what's the plan? Raff wants to kill us?" Dean asked, wondering what the hell they were going to do about that.

"That's about it," the angel confirmed cheerfully. "Get rid of the Winchesters and the lines will return to their original paths, Paradise on earth, yada yada."

"You sure of that?" Sam asked casually, moving a few steps to one side. "With Hell and the fallen all jockeying for a take?"

Jimmy's eyes narrowed as the angel stared at him. "You think they'll withstand the Host?"

"Host is commanded by Michael … isn't it?" Dean asked innocently, moving away from his brother.

"Michael will be dead!"

"Oh, who gets that job?" Dean took a couple more steps to the right of the angel.

"Stop moving! I'd be glad to kill you myself," the angel snarled, twisting to look at him, Sam now almost behind him.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Dean told him, shifting abruptly to the right, the angel following him automatically and Sam hitting him from behind, not even trying for an incapacitating hit, just shoving with all his weight and sending the vessel sprawling into the soggy leaf fall that covered the ground.

"Go!" Dean yelled at him, aiming a fast kick at the vessel's head, seeing the jaw snap back with the force of it as he turned to follow Sam.

The angel shook his head and rolled to his knees, arms upraised. Both men were stopped in their tracks, held by a force that was crushing them, squeezing flesh against bone and the air from their lungs. Dean saw his shadow leap out ahead of him, the trunks of the trees brightening as light filled the clearing behind them.

_"RELEASE THEM!"_

It wasn't the high-pitched, piercing noise that had nearly melted his brain the first time he'd met Cas, Dean thought, falling forward as the force holding him vanished. And it wasn't Jimmy's voice. There was an element of both in it, though, and he rolled onto his back, eyes slitted against the white light that bled every colour from the woods.

Jimmy stood silhouetted by it, one arm protectively across his eyes, the other held out. Beyond him was the shape of a man, barely visible through the glare. Sort of a man, Dean amended, lifting his arm to shade his eyes. Taller. Broader. And the wings that extended up and out from behind him were massive, filling the clearing from side to side, were definitely not human.

It took a single stride to Jimmy's vessel, ignoring the outthrust hand and slammed its palm over his head. The light flared brightly, a miniature super-nova that seared the clearing and Dean screwed his eyes shut against it, rolling to his knees and staggering away, hearing Sam doing the same, several feet to his right.

"Dean, wait," the not-quite-Castiel voice called. He stopped, opening an eye as the light faded away, his pupil expanding rapidly in the dim glow of the slowly rising moon.

"Cas?"

"Yes," the angel said. "Raphael is coming –"

Turning, the brothers looked at the form of the angel, eyes widening in unison. Like the voice, there were aspects of the angel in front of them that were undoubtedly Castiel. Jimmy lay on the ground at the angel's feet, trenchcoat scrunched up where he'd fallen on it.

"Your pal told us," Dean snapped. "We have to get back –"

"That wasn't my friend," Castiel cut him off. "I am sorry you were deceived but it was not of my doing. I was imprisoned, when Isophiel took my vessel."

"What – is that the real you?" Sam asked, taking a step closer as he stared at the wings that were folded against Cas' back.

"No, not really," Cas said impatiently. "It's a construct. It's the closest I can come to being visible without destroying your minds."

"Get us out of here, Cas," Dean said, looking around the clearing uneasily. "Take us back to Lebanon."

"I'm afraid I can't do that," the angel said sorrowfully, walking toward him.

"Why the fuck not!?"

"Raphael is here."

Lightning encased the clearing in glowing blue tendrils, the sharp smell of burning wood as the bolts spat and crackled from trunk to trunk, throwing their shadows across the ground and each other, the acrid scent of ozone overwhelming the charred smell as the bolts grew thicker, longer and converged into the centre of the open space.

The form that materialised there was, like Castiel, humanoid in shape. Taller than the angel, broader across shoulders and chest, the unearthly and beautiful face lifted as the lightning retreated back to the tree line, forming a cage around them.

Raphael, Sam thought dazedly. Guardian of the North, Lord of Air and Light. The archangel the priests called on to make the way clear for the souls that were passing on after their last rites. He was beautiful, with a perfection that somehow hurt the mind to see. But there was no compassion on that face, no humour or caring. He stared at the two men and the angel with a look of chilling disdain, the wide, full mouth curling up in an unlovely sneer as his eyes narrowed on Castiel.

"You escaped?"

"As you see," Castiel said, taking a small step closer to the archangel.

"Michael is having doubts, I suppose?" Raphael said coolly, his gaze flicking to Sam and then to Dean.

"Many of them."

"When these … men … are gone, it will all be as it was supposed to be," Raphael said, the golden eyes staring intently at the older Winchester.

"No," Castiel disagreed. "It won't. That time has gone. We need to be united now, more than ever before against –"

"Stop," Raphael said, his voice bored. "Get out of the way, my brother."

"No."

"Then you can die with them."

He lifted his hands, holding them apart and between the palms electricity crackled and burned. Dean tensed, watching the small bolt of tame lightning, purple edged in white, jump from hand to hand. The archangel swung his arm back and whipped it forward and the tiny bolt elongated, thickening and brightening and sizzling at came for him.

Castiel spun around, seizing both men and dragging them close to him, his wings stretching out to enclose them as the lightning struck him. Dean smelled the burning flesh and feathers, saw the angel's face crumple in agony as the current crawled over him, seeking its target. It dissipated in a series of pops and crackles and Castiel looked over his shoulder, his face grim.

"You will not harm them!"

"Watch me," Raphael drawled, drawing his arm back again.

The lightning in his hand died and vanished as darkness filled the clearing, drawing the energy from the electrical cage around them, from the archangel himself. Dean glanced at Cas, seeing the angel's eyes widen slightly as the amorphous dimness took shape.

"Rafe, really."

The voice deepened a little as the charcoal cloud folded in and about itself, solidifying into a form, tall and black and winged.

"Gabriel, you have been out of this fight from the beginning," Raphael warned his brother, drawing himself up. "Do _not_ become involved now!"

"Unfortunately, the time for sitting on the sidelines and hoping it would all get better has come and gone," Gabriel said, a little sadly. "You have pushed and pulled at the world until you left me no choice."

"Did Michael send you?"

"No," Gabriel said. He lifted his hand and Sam saw a long, golden horn held in it. "No, this is business, Rafe. My business."

"Cover your ears," Castiel said frantically to the men, wings drawing in close around them again. "Hide your faces! Do not listen! Do not look!"

They reached for each other, standing close with their hands pressed hard over the sides of their heads, the angel's wings curved protectively around them, the scents of flowers and feathers filling noses and mouths as they ducked their heads and closed their eyes tightly.

Distantly, Dean heard the perfect notes of the horn, felt them oscillate in his bones, through the spaces in his skull. He had the feeling that if the angel's wings had not been over them, those beautiful, aching notes could have disintegrated him in a flash.

Behind them, Raphael stared as his brother's construct morphed into the form he was best known for. The slight, slender frame grew taller and broadened, pale gold and tawny feathers darkened to grey and then to black as feathers grew down the length of his arms to his wrists, shining black, raven's feathers … crow feathers. The warm, hazel eyes darkened as well, changing to indigo, the round pupils becoming vertical slits and the weak face strengthened, cheekbones widening and lifting, brows become black and winged outward. The Angel of Death stood in front of Raphael and lifted the horn, blowing into it once.

Raphael felt his construct peel away, his mouth falling open in a soundless scream as the notes stripped him, first of flesh, then of the components of his energy, finally of all vestiges of the electrons and photons and neutrons that had made up his mass, his consciousness and being, scattering them outward at a speed greater than light could travel.

The electricity that the archangel had called and controlled was gone. Overhead, the moon sailed in a cloudless sky, its light dappling the grassy ground through the bare branches of the trees, the faint smell of charred wood remaining. On the ground in front of Gabriel, a long, silver sword lay, gleaming softly in the white light.

Castiel lowered his wings, turning to face Gabriel. The archangel was still in his truest visible form, and Dean dropped his gaze as Gabriel's eyes met his. How he'd had the balls to argue with him when he'd delivered Death's message, he couldn't now recall.

Sam walked past Cas and bent toward the sword, and both Gabriel and Cas reached out and held him back.

"What?"

"To touch the sword of an angel that is not attuned to you is death," Gabriel said gently, dropping a thick silk cloth over the sword and bundling it within the folds.

"What?" Sam asked Cas, glancing at Dean.

"Raphael's sword resonates at a frequency that you cannot tolerate," the angel explained impatiently. "Neither of you," he added, looking at Dean. "You could touch Michael's sword, although no other could and live."

"Because of the vessel thing?" Dean asked, not sure he got what the angel meant.

"Yes, you and Michael alone, not even Adam would be able to hold it for more than a few minutes."

"Cas, you gotta get us back to the keep," Dean said, shoving the thought of angel swords aside.

"I will –"

"Castiel, Michael is looking for you," Gabriel said abruptly, his head tilted to one side as if he was listening to something none of them could hear.

Dean's neck prickled. "No, Cas, we gotta –"

The rush of beating wings filled the clearing and stirred the branches in the trees around them.

"NO!"

Dean spun around, staring hopelessly at the empty space. Beside him, Sam knelt next to Jimmy's body, two fingers lying lightly over the artery at the side of his neck.

"He's alive."

"Fuck!" Dean yelled at the indifferent sky. "We're fucking well stuck here!"

Looking around the clearing, the moonlight shading everything including themselves in black and white and grey, Sam suddenly realised that this what Chuck had seen – or a part of it anyway. He saw Dean stop moving, head dipping as his shoulders slumped and realised that his brother realised that too.

They'd never had any luck with outrunning or out-manoeuvring the prophet's visions. He wasn't surprised now that this time had turned out to be the same.

* * *

_**I-70 W, Kansas**_

The interstate was cracked and buckled but not so severely that the army vehicles couldn't get through. Walking ahead of the trucks and soldiers, the two children moved fast, covering the miles as their power cleared the way, and the battalions moved through clouds of steam and over the shining, wet concrete at a pace that exceeded the capabilities of the human vessels they occupied.

They would reach the northern road in a day, Baeder thought, and divide up there. The last intelligence the demon had received had been a week and a half ago. The humans were not stupid and the defences would have been strengthened, possibly extended further out. The army would hit them from three sides, south, east and west, settling into position at the range of the guns they had dragged along.

The attack was merely a diversion. Once engaged, the nephilim and cambion would be able to approach the keeps and would find their targets. It was only the order's safehold that had not been pinpointed accurately, Crowley's men being unable to get a fix on it. And that would be where they kept their prophet, and the tablet.

Someone would talk. He had no doubt about it. He had been in Europe and in Africa. In Asia and in South America. He knew how to get information.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

_The contract between the penitent and God begins from the successful completion of the first ordeal. Only death will sever the contract once begun. The destruction of the infernal wolf opens the way to the accursed realm and the second ordeal will be a task to retrieve an artefact from the depths. The penitent will complete the trials alone. None may accompany him for only the contract will strengthen the contender._

Rubbing her eyes, Alex looked up and set her pen down beside the completed page. Chuck had been sleeping for the past thirty-six hours and there was still no word or sign from Dean or Sam.

The trials – the ordeals – revealed on the tablet had been shoe-horned in amongst the other information, given in drips rather than as a single, linear narrative. She wasn't sure why that was the case but the little Chuck had said after he'd stopped translating and had gone into his vision suggested that the tablet was supposed to be studied as a whole before it could be analysed for its contents. They didn't have time for that, she thought, looking at the reams of paper stacked around the library. Everyone there was reading, making notes, trying to get the pieces to fit together. Jerome, Katherine and Davis, Jasper and Felix and Aaron, Marla and Oliver and Frances. As each typed transcription had been finished Jerome and Jasper had scanned the information into the database and sent it to the other chapters, and those scholars were studying the information as well.

There were discrete sections, she thought. The weapons and the lists and the histories. Even the trials were clearly apart from the rest, set out with little ambiguity. Why then was the delivery of the information stirred and presented in such confusion? The way God spoke? The angel, Metatron, had taken down the Word from God Himself, Jasper had said of the legends surrounding the tablets that they'd been able to find. Perhaps it was just the way God gave information.

She glanced into the cup beside her and picked it up, face screwing up a little as she downed the cold coffee in it. She would make another pot later.

The next section was a detailed description of the methods of transporting demons and moving around the levels of Hell in the various forms. Alex began to skim over the text, then stopped, her pen tip lifting from the paper. In fact, this was vital information to the second ordeal, she realised abruptly. The accursed plane behaved differently according to the parameters of the being that entered. Souls were directed in a single downward spiral, they could not deviate from the course between the starting point and their final destination. The demons who were souls were likewise bound to a single route between levels and within those levels. Only the upper hierarchies had the power to change their directions and only when they formed a physical construct for their existence. If they remained as tainted souls, no matter how powerful, they could not rise once they had descended. Flesh and blood and breath saw a different layout altogether and travelled between the actual levels of Hell and the corresponding, ghost levels of its echoes in the material plane.

She stared at the stacks on the other side of the room unseeingly. In Chitaqua, Castiel had told her of the raising of Dean's soul from the seventh level. The Host of angels had been in constructs and the layouts of the plane had remained fixed and tangible. They had seen the souls and the demons and had fought on the upper levels, while he had taken a unit deeper. Even Dean had been in the construct he'd created involuntarily, the memories of his body as his soul had perceived it. It'd only been when the angel had taken his consciousness of himself that he'd returned to the intangible form of a soul.

Guiding points were required for negotiating Hell in mortal form. Strong memories or strong images that the plane could recognise would move the halls and caverns and stairs and levels around a living being. How then would a contender find the artefact, without knowing what it was? Without seeing it?

It would be in there, somewhere, she thought, looking back at the page. But she needed to make sure that the details that seemed randomly thrown together were separated and included with the details of the ordeals. They weren't random, they were all essential to the successful completion of the trials, to the final stage that would enable the closing of the gates.

The bombs. The binding sigils for projectiles – the tablet had specified arrowheads and spear tips, but Franklin and his apprentices had already used them on every shell, bullet and piece of shrapnel he'd designed for the defence of the population – they were all to allow a mortal through the halls of Hell.

_The archdemons are nine in number. Each one rules a level of the accursed plane. No weapon save the divine will wound or kill them. They are the Fallen. Those angels who in their loyalty to their rebellion leader chose to share his punishment. Each one was a powerful seraph in Heaven. Each one endured the wrath of the Morning Star for a thousand years. Each one is deadly to anyone within their sphere of influence. Asmodeus, ruler of the first level. Pythius, ruler of the second level. Merihem, ruler of the third level. Belphigor, ruler of the fourth level. Mammon, ruler of the demons of the abyss and the dividing point between the upper and lower levels. Astaroth, ruler of the fifth level. Belial, ruler of the sixth level, the Lake of Fire. Moloch, ruler of the seventh level. No ruler lives or minds the Wastelands that is the eighth level. Baal is the ruler of the ninth level and the Keeper of the Cage._

_No weapon save the divine_, she thought, underlining the phrase in frustration. What did that mean? That only an angel could kill them? If they were deadly to anyone who came near them, how was the contender supposed to get past them? Were they like the angels and the half-breeds and the fallen, that only removing the heart would destroy them?

He wasn't going to do it. He'd told her he wouldn't give up what he had. She believed him, believed that he wanted to live, but an insidious sense, a creeping feeling that lived cold in her heart, suggested that he may not have a choice in the matter. He'd never had a choice before.

_The ninth level is a labyrinth of ice. At the centre is the Cage. The penitent will enter the Cage and take the sword of the Most Unclean from him. The sword is brought back and the trial is completed with the renewal of the contract with God._

She stared at the words, skimming frantically down the page. There was nothing about the second trial. Just get into Hell, get down to the ninth, past the archdemons who can't be killed but who can kill without a touch, grab the sword of Lucifer and bring it back up. Shaking her head, she re-read the page twice more before conceding that so far as instructions were concerned, that was it.

It was possible that there was more, buried in the writings on the stone that Chuck hadn't yet deciphered. It was possible that somewhere, on the tablet, in the prophet's mind, in God's narrative, there was a detailed set of instructions to killing the archdemons. But it wasn't here.

She pushed back from the table and got up, walking fast to the kitchen with her empty cup. Caffeine. Strong. Lots of it. And a few deep breaths to dispel the fear and anxiety and doubt along the way.

* * *

_**Lightning Oak Ridge, Kansas**_

The bright shrill ring of the phone was at once so ordinary, yet so unfamiliar after four years without, that both Bobby and Ellen sat and stared at the handset for some moments before Ellen rocketed out of her chair and reached for it, snatching it up and holding it to her ear.

"Hello?"

The conventions remained the same, Bobby thought, passing her a paper and pen as she gestured wildly at him. He looked down as she wrote, brows drawing together.

"Thanks, we've got it," Ellen said crisply, putting the handset down in the cradle and looking at him. "Well, we're in it now. The monitors picked them up coming in on 150 W, School Avenue from the east and up the 281. They're going to hit us on three fronts."

Bobby nodded. "Time to go," he said shortly. "They'll hit the hot zone in five minutes after passing the cameras."

"Bobby, I'm still –" Ellen started to say.

"No arguments, Ellen," Bobby cut her off. "Get in the truck."

* * *

_**Belleville, Illinois**_

"What the fuck?" Dean said as they climbed up on the off ramp to the wide concrete road.

In both directions, the interstate was clear, the surface lumpy and cracked and fissured, but no snow, no water, no cars or junk heaps, or even a fallen leaf as far as they could see east or west.

Behind them, Jimmy staggered up the incline, stopping as he looked curiously in both directions. "What?"

"Road's clear," Sam said, flicking a glance at him. Cas' vessel had had a hard time. He'd woken unwillingly, starving hungry, tired and thirsty and hadn't wanted to hear about what had been going on since the last time he'd been left by the angel.

"So?"

"So, the last time we came through here, it wasn't," Dean snapped impatiently at him.

"This is the way they came," Sam said to his brother quietly. Dean nodded.

However they'd done it, this was the most direct route to Kansas, and with the ability to clear it, it would also be the best surface for their vehicles and personnel, he thought. They were ahead, probably a long way ahead by now.

"Come on," he said brusquely, not looking at either men behind him. "We'll get off at St Louis, might find a vehicle there."

It was possible. Unlikely, but possible. Fury simmered in him and he ignored the protest of muscles that had been walking solidly for two days now, ignored the growling in his stomach at the lack of food, ignored the graininess in his eyes from lack of sleep. Chuck had been right and they weren't there, and the army would be before they could get home.

Walking behind him, Sam didn't argue. They needed food and they would need to sleep sometime soon, but he knew full well that Dean was not stopping until he dropped, and no amount of rational talk would change that.

"Why can't we stop?" Jimmy said, struggling to keep up with Sam's longer stride.

"There's an army heading for our home," Sam said, glancing at him. "We're probably going to be too late anyway."

"We can't walk to Kansas!"

Sam's smile was completely devoid of humour. "Sure we can," he told the man sourly. "And if we don't find a working vehicle of some sort soon, that's exactly what we'll be doing."

* * *

"Dean, slow down," Sam called as the faint noise registered again. Twice now, he'd heard it, unable to pinpoint the direction or what it could be, but it wasn't natural and it wasn't that off.

"What?"

"Can you hear that?" Sam stopped and held an arm to stop Jimmy as well. Dean scowled at him but half-closed his eyes, concentrating on listening.

The growl wasn't that far off, Sam thought. A car? A truck? He let his eyes close and turned slowly on the road, stopping when he thought it was loudest.

"Car," Dean said shortly, facing the same direction.

"Get off or stay on?"

Looking down the open and empty straight stretch in front of them, Dean shrugged. "Stay on," he decided. "There's three of us. We'll try and take it if they're not friendly." His fingers slipped around to the back of his hip, resting lightly on the bone-handled knife.

The vehicle appeared half an hour later, the wide, boxy shape instantly identifiable. Sam sucked in a breath, wondering if it was a straggler from the main force.

"Sam! Dean!"

The voice was familiar and both men turned to look as the humvee drew up beside them, Peter's face visible in the open driver's window, smeared with dirt and blood.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

* * *

_**Woodland Keep, Kansas**_

Through the high magnification of the glasses, Vince could see the entire field, and the details of the demon-possessed soldiers crossing it. He watched them advance, several long lines, loosely spread out, and waited until the first tracked light tanks had crossed the boundary marked at one end by the lightning-struck tree, and at the other by a leaning boulder above the narrow stream. Then he nodded.

Behind him, Joseph hit the switches on the simply wired panel, sending the radio signals sequentially across the field. The mines exploded, five lines right across the bare and ploughed up field, sending car-sized chunks of half-frozen ground twisting into the air, thousands of razor-edged pre-packed metal shards through the flesh and blood of the demon's measuits and at the rear, the larger charges, packed with iron pellets in a thick suspension of blessed saline solution, the salt concentration so heavy the liquid was almost a paste.

Looking through the glasses, Vince smiled as he viewed the carnage. "I do believe we got their attention, Joe," he said contentedly.

* * *

_**White Stream Keep, Kansas**_

"Nate."

The dark-haired hunter looked around slowly, following Danielle's eyeline to the woods. He could see them now, their desert camouflage not quite blending in with the leafless branches and patches of snow still humped into drifts and piles against the iron-grey trunks of the trees.

"Ready?"

She nodded, tucked down below the crenellated lip of the square tower's roof. He shifted his position and nodded, and they hit the line of switches in front of them.

_BOOM! Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom- boom!_

The mines buried through the thin forest went off one after the other in a cannonade, trees falling and men screaming and fire licking at the damp undergrowth and the dry, fallen timber.

They watched the demons staggering out through the trees and settled themselves behind the guns, strafing the open ground and the outermost line of the woodland edge, engraved rounds punching into the meatsuits and expanding immediately, gouging gaping holes through organs and bone and muscle and remaining in the incapacitated bodies as they fell.

"How many?"

"No more than a hundred here," Nate growled as he released the trigger, gaze scanning the field and woods for movement. "They're breaking into smaller units, hoping we'll waste our ammo."

She nodded, glancing down at the metal cases that lined the low parapet in rows two and three deep. "Don't know Franklin, do they?"

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

The shrill whistle of projectiles, the concussive thunder of the explosions as they found a target, the sharp chatter of gunfire, incoming and returned, found their way even through the thick walls of the keep and Alex found herself listening for the sounds, and for any difference in them, as she moved through the halls with Merrin, triaging the men and women lying on cots along the walls around Kim's offices.

"Alex."

Looking down, she saw Rudy, upper arm and shoulder roughly dressed and seeping blood.

"Rudy, has anyone looked at you?" she asked, stopping and leaning over him to lift the edge of his jacket aside. "Do you have any other injuries?"

He shook his head. "No, we were in the south court when a part of the wall came down."

She lifted her bag to the edge of the cot and began to unwind the sodden dressings.

"Have you seen Michael?" he asked her, trying to lever himself upright. "I thought I saw him come in."

"He might be with Kim," she said, laying a light hand on his shoulder. "Just stay still until I get this cleaned up." She drew in a breath as the damage became visible. "Can you make a fist, Rudy?"

He closed his hand and tightened it, face twisting up in pain. "Sort of."

"Alright, I'm going to have to clean this out," she muttered. "What's going on out there?"

"They've got artillery on both sides, but they're concentrating on the walls," he said, leaning back as the colour drained from his face. "Uh … Maurice said that they don't want to bring the towers down."

"Not yet," she murmured under her breath. "How many, do you think?"

He gave her a pained grin. "No idea. My first war."

"Make sure you stay alive to have a second," she said to him, flushing the wounds out.

"Tryin'." He tensed as she picked out the debris. "We haven't seen Dean."

"He's not here, right now," she told him, drawing the torn flesh together. "I can't stitch this, Rudy, there're no edges." He nodded and she spread the creamy paste that Oliver had brought with them over the pulped muscle, keeping it together with a gauze pad as she wound a clean bandage around the upper arm.

"I heard that Lightning Oak was knocked down," he said, his eyes closing as the pain got worse.

"When did you hear that?" she asked worriedly, finishing the shoulder bandage and tying it off.

"About an hour ago, Maurice cleared a path …"

"Rudy," she said, looking down at him. Overloading, she thought. She found the antibiotic shot in the bag and gave it to him, then the morphine, pinning a small yellow tag on the corner of the bandage.

Looking at her watch, she saw it was past six. It would be dark outside now, and there was no way to get across the country to the other keep with the demons massing around them. Ellen had told her about Cas coming and getting Dean and Sam. The older woman now thought it must have been a trap for them. They were supposed to have returned the same night. She tried not to think about what kind of a trap the angels had set for them.

Making her way along the corridor, she headed for the stairs, climbing the flights to the roof. The noise was a thousand times worse as she came out of the doorway to the top of the keep tower, the night brilliant with the fires that burned all around the keeps, in the woods between them and in the baileys below. Keeping to the high tower that ran halfway around the roof, she saw more flames leaping to the north and east, muzzle flashes from the forts that were squat black shadows in the darkness and the occasional red-painted sparkling fall of Franklin's scatter bombs as they diverted the enemy's heat or laser-tracked missiles.

* * *

_**Ghost Valley Farm, Kansas**_

Riley lay full length along the barn roof, invisible in the shadow from the gable. He could see them moving across the fields now, emboldened by the covering darkness that prevented the closest fort from strafing them. Well, they'd get a surprise when they hit the woods that ran along the lane, he thought with a dry satisfaction.

In the two houses that were on either side of the interlocking farmyards below him, their people were already evacuating through the narrow tunnels that led out to the north-west. Dean had been right, he thought absently. They weren't interested in the people, unless they could provide leverage against the leaders for what they'd come for. They needed people. Hard to be potentate of the world without slaves, after all. No different from any other tinpot dictator the world had seen since the beginning.

His concentration narrowed as he saw the first flicker of movement at the edge of the woods. Give 'em time, he told himself calmly, thumb resting on the radio control. Everyone should enjoy the fun.

When he was sure that they were all within the tree line he pressed the trigger and watched the mines go up.

* * *

_**Blue Springs, Missouri**_

The car leapt over the lifted section of concrete and the passengers, crowded tightly together inside, ducked their heads and braced their hands against the roof as they hit the concrete surface on landing, the hard suspension rattling their teeth with the impact.

Sam flicked a sideways glance at his brother. Dean's gaze was fixed forward, hands tight around the wheel as his eyes scanned over the lit road in front of them, the boxy vehicle swerving to avoid wider fissures and the worst sections of the fractured interstate. Trying to give his brother as much elbow room as possible to drive, Sam was pressed against Elena and Peter in the front seat, Jimmy and the three Qaddiysh squashed together in the rear seat.

Dean'd been driving for eighteen hours straight now, and despite Peter's occasional suggestions that they swap, which the hunter ignored, he was obviously going to take them all the way. The last sign still standing by the side of the road had advised that Kansas City was twenty miles ahead.

"We have to stop, Dean," he said in a low mutter. "We have to eat."

He saw his brother's mouth thin out, the jaw muscle bunch and sighed. "I know you can keep going, but we can't. Jimmy can't."

"Just an hour," he tried again.

To his surprise, Dean nodded abruptly, his gaze unwavering in front of him. "Alright, we'll eat."

Hearing Sam's soft exhale, Dean realised that Sam was wondering how close to the edge he was. He flexed his fingers around the big, vinyl-covered wheel, loosening the tension in them.

_Pretty damned close_, he thought acidly. They'd played him perfectly, as always, and he'd swallowed it, hook, line and sinker, trusting in Cas and never even thinking that it could've been a trap, despite the timing being so close to what the demon was doing.

In the back, the Qaddiysh had the box, the one that could capture the wandering creators and lock them away, and he could not have given a rat's about it. He'd promised himself that Chuck would be wrong this time, that he would be there, and that Crowley and the Grigori would fucking well die on the fields surrounding the keep. The gun could've done it, he knew. They were not immune to Colt's bullets. And destiny – or Heaven – or the prophet or the Word or whatever the hell it was that manipulated the events surrounding him and Sam, had won again. He wasn't going to make it back in time. He knew it.

_They'll be fine_, he told himself, unaware that his knuckles had whitened again. _They're protected even from the cambion, even from the dark half-breed. They'd be there_.

The interstate had been cleared. He didn't know how. The cambion had enormous power when they were young, both Jasper and the angel had told them that. The power to change reality. The power to make reality. Or to unmake it. Pushing the thoughts aside, he focussed on the next exit. Sam was right. He could run on his nerves, could run on the adrenalin surging through him but when he got there, he'd be useless and so would the others. They would stop and eat and then go on.

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

"Don't tell me what I know!" Crowley screamed at the demon cringing in front of him. He snapped his fingers and the demon and meatsuit disintegrated, a puff of ash floating away on the slight breeze.

"Crowley, you are reducing our numbers," Dietrich said mildly, flicking the ash from his sleeve. "Calm down."

"The walls are holding!" the demon spat at him, eyes red with fury. "How the hell are we supposed to get in there if they're holding?"

"That is not the concern," Baeder told him, his voice clipped with impatience. "Draxler, have you located the chapter house?"

"We have it narrowed to an area, slightly east of north of the town," the half-breed said expressionlessly. "It is protected by illusions we cannot penetrate at a distance."

"Then quarter the area with men, inch by inch," Baeder order him. The cambion shrugged and turned away.

"Hang on a minute," Crowley snapped, staring at Baeder. "Since when are you running this battle?"

The Grigori turned to look at him, firelight reflecting in the pale remaining eye. He gestured once, abruptly, and the demon stiffened, his arms clamped tight to his sides as he was lifted from the ground.

"Since I have decided that you are too emotional to make rational decisions," Baeder said coolly, lifting his head slightly. He turned away and the demon king fell to the ground, sucking in huge mouthfuls of air, his face twisted in anger.

"There are many things you are useful for, Crowley," Baeder continued conversationally. "But you are no longer in charge. Am I making myself understood?"

He turned back as Crowley got to his feet, hands searching frantically over his body.

The fallen angel smiled. "Yes, but you will not find on your person. This spell has lodged deeper."

Dietrich looked from one to the other. "What are you talking about, Baeder?"

The misshapen face turned toward him. "Insurance, my brother. A little insurance."

He looked across the burning woods toward the farms in the distance. "Have we taken any prisoners?"

"A few," Dietrich admitted. "We intercepted a group moving from the destroyed keep."

"Bring me one; the spell will need fresh blood."

Dietrich nodded.

* * *

Draxler stood in the shadows of great wall, looking down at the children in front of him.

"When you get in, you must find these people," he told Jesse, handing him the list of names. "The soldiers will take you to them. Take hold and bring them out, back to me here."

Jesse nodded seriously, reaching out to take Alison's hand. The children vanished and the cambion moved back against the wall, knowing he was invisible under the cover of the shadows, hearing the fusillade from the opposite side of the keep as the army moved closer and redoubled the attack along the wall.

* * *

Jesse stood in the bailey, eyes wide as he watched people running across the enormous courtyard, the thick curtain wall shaking as the bombs exploded against it. He drew Alison back toward the tall tower as cracks began to appear in the concrete, the shuddering growing more pronounced.

"Hey!" The man's voice was right behind them and they turned together, looking at him. "What the hell are you two kids doing out here?!"

"We were looking –" Alison's thin, light voice was drowned beneath the roaring fall of the concrete and stone behind them.

"Christ!" The soldier said, grabbing her shoulder and dragging both to the keep steps as the wall crumbled, blocks of stone and concrete and the heavy fill sending clouds of dust and smoke rolling into the bailey. "Inside, now!"

They ran past him through the doors, dodging the men and women racing through the big hall, glancing curiously around.

"Herb!" The soldier shouted at a tall, thin man running past. "Got a couple of lost kids here, get 'em somewhere safe!" He looked down at them as the man skidded to a halt and turned toward them. "Go with him, he'll help you find your family, okay?"

They nodded and watched the soldier go back out through the heavy iron doors.

"Who are you kids with?" Herb leaned down and looked at them. Jesse felt the paper slip from his hand as Alison looked at it behind his back.

"Alex and Ellen," the little girl said, pushing the list back into Jesse's closing hand. "They know where our – family is."

"Alright, they're down in medical," Herb said, glancing at the doors. "We'll get you over there right away."

They followed him through a number of rooms filled with people loading weapons, cleaning minor wounds, eating and drinking, into a longer, quieter corridor. He glanced back over his shoulder, making sure they were keeping up as he strode along. With the wall breached, they were firing through the gaps now, the demons unable to advance into the keep but the inner buildings more at risk.

"Here we are," Herb said as he reached the hall, heart sinking slightly as he saw that the number of cots along the walls had increased in the last two hours. "Come on."

Jesse looked at the sigils and wards painted along the walls and over the floors and ceilings. The demons could not enter here, he thought distractedly, nor the fallen. Not even the nephilim could cross the circle that spanned the corridor. These people, whoever they were, knew the guards that kept almost everything out. But not him, he thought. Not him and Alison.

"Ellen!" Herb called and slowed as the woman appeared in the doorway, thick, dark gold hair drawn back from her face as she looked around questioningly. Herb opened his mouth to tell her about the children when the shell hit the side of the keep tower and the building shuddered, rock falling from cracks that were skating along the walls. Alison darted past him as Ellen flinched back, her arm going over her head. Only Jesse saw the little girl enter the circle in front of the office door, enter it and disappear in an eyeblink flash of light. He stared at the circle disbelievingly.

"Ellen, these kids asked –" Herb said, ducking out of the way as a chunk of concrete dropped from the ceiling.

"Where are they?" Ellen stepped back through the doorway, looking down the hall at the little boy who stood behind the hunter. "You looking for me, hon?"

He nodded. "And Alex? My mother said –"

Another few pieces dropped from the rapidly shattering concrete and Ellen glanced up and over to Herb. "Get these people out of here, grab whoever's still standing, we need to move them to a more stable area," she yelled at him, turning to look behind her. "Alex? Kim okay in there?"

Jesse watched as a younger woman came out, a cut on one cheek and dust covering her hair and face as she coughed. "Yeah, we got the concussion and lost the power but Kim and Merrin are fine."

Stepping a little closer he stared at them. There was another name from the list. "My sister – she was hurt bad," he said to them, gesturing vaguely behind him. "Can you help?"

"Kim!" Ellen turned back into the room as a slender dark-haired woman ran out. "Got an injury out here."

"Injuries everywhere," Kim snapped, her expression softening a little as she looked at the boy. "Where?"

The three women were in the corridor now, on the other side of the trap that had taken Alison and Jesse took a long stride toward them. He couldn't think about Alison now, he knew. He had a job to do. He lifted his hands and touched them.

And disappeared.


	14. Chapter 14 One Fine Day

**Chapter 14 One Fine Day**

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Ariana stood outside the door of the building that was mostly hidden in the hillside, feeling the liquid drying over and around her eyes, resisting the impulse to rub it off. The long strokes of burned blood were what enabled her to see the building, the door, amidst the illusions she knew were all that were visible to the demons crowding uneasily by the edge of the road.

Across the doorway however, there was a circle she could not cross.

Draxler walked up to her, the young boy trailing behind him. The loss of the other child had infuriated Baeder almost to the point of losing his reason. The half-breed had taken the child from the ranting man and brought him into the forest. Both man and child had the same blackened red streaks painted over their eye sockets, extending out to wrap around the temples and disappear into the hairlines. The fallen were capable of that level of sorcery, at least, Draxler thought sourly.

Glancing to the right of the nephilim, Draxler nodded to the son of Harrer, the only other non-scarred offspring of the Grigori with them. They hadn't expected to see the wards against the nephilim. The original plan had been jettisoned without hesitation and the children had become the keys instead. It had put them back some hours.

"The circle bars us from this place," Ariana said softly to him, gesturing at the sigil drawn in blood over the ground and door and reinforced walls.

"That will not be a problem," Draxler said neutrally, holding his hand to the boy beside him. "When the way is clear, enter and destroy all resistance."

She nodded, watching the man and boy walk toward the door.

The flash was soundless and the door, the warding circle and nearly three foot all around the frame was simply gone. Automatic fire rattled from the inside but the cambion walked through it, and she looked at Joaquin and nodded, walking together through the hole in the hillside, lifting the barrels of their rifles.

Marla stared up as the man and boy walked along the gallery, followed by another two people, a tall woman and a broad-shouldered man, their guns lifted and spraying bullets across the room as they descended the curving staircase.

She scuttled under the cover of the iron steps, lifting her weapon as the soldiers dropped to their knees across the library's entrance and fired continuously at the four intruders, blinking as they disappeared a moment later, charred ash on the top step where they'd been. The boy lowered his hands without missing a stride.

Chuck stood in the centre of the library, the tables pushed aside. Above and below him the traps had been laid into ceiling and floor and holy oil burned in a circle around him, the flames lighting his face and reflecting in his wide, frightened eyes.

The prophet had to be saved. It was the only thought she had left. She leapt out of the alcove, her thumb automatically flicking the gun in her hands to automatic and pulled back on the trigger.

The woman turned as a row of black holes stitched across her chest and through her face, knocking her backwards into the man. Changing the aim slightly, Marla held the gun down, the savage recoil numbing her wrists and shoulders as another line of holes appeared across the man's body. She was already moving away when she saw the barrel of his gun lift toward her, her magazine out and a long, rolling dive taking her behind the situation table.

Felix and Davis started shooting from both sides of the doorway as the man and boy climbed the steps toward the prophet, the bullets stopped by a force surrounding them. Davis leapt up, the falchion in his hand swinging in a low hissing arc, and felt the blade shudder as it impacted with the unseen wall, the jarring vibrations travelling through his fingers and up his arm as the man turned impossibly fast and swept it aside with a thicker, heavier blade. A big hand wrapped around the old man's throat and lifted him effortlessly from the floor, shaking him once, the crack of his vertebrae loud in the room, and dropping him.

The boy stood in front of the circle of flame and looked at the man standing within it. From the hall, Adam raced across the room, booming retorts from the .45 held in one hand echoing around the high ceiling, the holes punching through into the man as he turned back to the boy.

_Don't shoot at the boy_, he told himself, ducking and rolling behind the table as the man brought a rifle up and bullets filled the air where he'd been. _Kill the man, he doesn't have the same power, then the boy_.

He saw the man stagger back as Jerome threw the lightning at him, saw him shake his head and catch hold of the shelves beside him, and lifted his gun, firing smoothly at the side of the man's face he could see.

Two more walked up the stairs, bleeding freely from a number of holes that glinted red through their clothing. Nephilim, he thought, swinging his gun around. The dark-haired man was down, the woman and younger man had split up, moving up both sides of the room.

He lifted his gun to aim at the tall man when he heard Chuck shout out, spinning around and seeing the boy walk across the flames. Chuck backed away, his gaze swinging to either side of the burning oil, his face frantic with fear as he saw the nephilim waiting for him.

A hand closed around the back of Adam's neck and he struggled against the strength of it as he was lifted from the floor. The thumb drove into the nerve centre, paralysing him as a nightmarish face filled his vision. The small entrance hole marred one stubbled cheek and a much larger, torn-apart exit hole on the other side revealed the half-breed's jaw and teeth through tattered flesh. Dark eyes stared into his.

"Where is the tablet?"

The grip shifted on him, thumbs driving into the softer flesh to either side of the neck. Adam stared at the man silently.

"I won't ask again," the man said, the words mushy with the air aspirated through the hole in his cheek. "Where is it?"

The barrel of the gun rose and he felt it press hard into his abdomen. He stared defiantly at the man. The shot was muffled by the contact and Draxler dropped him, leaving him on the floor as he looked around the library. He gestured to the nephilim abruptly.

"Search – every level!"

* * *

In the circle, Chuck stared at the boy in front of him. "You don't have to do this," he said softly. "You have the power to do anything you want."

Jesse looked at him blankly. "Alison died today."

"I'm sorry," Chuck said, seeing the shock behind the boy's big hazel eyes. "I'm sorry but do you want more people to die?"

Jesse shook his head, lunging forward suddenly, his small hand closing around Chuck's wrist. "No," he whispered and closed his eyes.

The flames around the circle shook and bowed as the boy disappeared with the prophet.

* * *

Draxler looked at the man in the wheelchair. His head was tipped back, a spreading stain of red appearing from the hand that was pressed against his side.

"Where is the tablet?" he asked him, crossing the room.

Jerome looked up at him, his face drawn and pale. "You're cambion," he said, coughing at the effort. "You can find anything."

For a moment, he thought that the man would break his neck, but he stopped, turning as the nephilim returned to the library, shaking their heads.

"Tell the man that we have hostages, and we have the prophet. We will trade in Iowa. Highway 34. Ottumwa. Iowa."

He swung around and walked back down through the library, his gaze scanning the shelves as he passed. This would be a place he could search, he thought distantly. When he had freed himself of the fallen. He would return here and look.

* * *

_**Hastings, Nebraska**_

It was full light when the truck's engine growled and the heavy vehicle slowed down, bumping as it pulled off the road. The engine was turned off and they heard the other vehicles stopping, voices shouting around them. Alex looked at Ellen, one brow lifted slightly. Ellen shrugged.

The opening of the flap at the back of the truck startled all three of them and they drew back from the man who stood silhouetted against the brighter light outside. As her eyes adjusted, Alex realised that she was looking at one of the Grigori, the details that remained fuzzy and blurred actually burn scars, his features gone from one side of his face.

"Get her unlocked from the others," Baeder commanded, and a dark-haired man climbed into the back of the truck, grabbing Alex's wrists and jerking them upward, the chain connecting her to Ellen and Kim tautening and pulling them forward.

"Watch it –" Kim snapped at him, and his hand moved in a blur of speed, loosely closed, the crack of his knuckles against her cheekbone and eye socket shockingly loud. Ellen saw her head snap back from the blow, her eyes rolling up in their sockets and leaned forward, ready for the pull of her weight on her wrists as Kim slumped to the side. Alex stared down at her hands in silent fury, watching as the man unlocked the cuffs from around her wrists, taking Kim's unconscious weight from them.

He pulled her to her feet and pushed her toward the open flap and she climbed down, looking carefully at each of the faces that surrounded her. Another tall man, his skin burned over the scalp and one ear, but his face unmarked. Another Grigori, she thought, Dean's descriptions coming back to her as she stared at them.

A shorter man, dark hair receding and dark eyes watching her thoughtfully, the crisp black suit and polished black shoes an unnecessary affectation in battle conditions. Dean's caustic comments about the King of Hell returned to her and she felt a slight satisfaction at her identification. Crowley.

Behind him, a tall, impossibly beautiful woman with a long fall of auburn hair and vivid silvery-grey eyes watched her, the young man standing beside her as beautiful as she was. This was the offspring of angels and humans, she thought, looking at his chiselled features and brilliant sky-blue eyes, the blond hair cut short around his face the exact colour of wheat ready to harvest.

"Come with me," the man with half-a-face said to her, and she walked away from the truck, aware of the dark-haired man close behind her, the others following more slowly.

She couldn't imagine what they wanted with her. Dean would be no more or less likely to deal with them if they treated her kindly or tortured her. Perhaps they didn't know that about him, she considered. They'd taken Ellen and Kim. They must've had some clues to realise that he would trade the stone for either woman as well. Or was the deal just a charade?

The Grigori had stopped in front of a large, long truck. She watched him climb the set of stairs that extended from the smaller door in the rear. Feeling the cambion behind her, she climbed into the truck reluctantly.

Inside the steel framed back, equipment lined the walls and partially filled the centre, the forward end of the truck mostly hidden behind a thick black curtain that covered three-quarters of the width of the truck.

The fallen angel turned to face her, his mouth lifting on one side, remaining fixed in place on the other. The effect was stilted, as if she were looking at a robot attempting a human expression, she thought.

"You understand why you are here?"

She looked at him expressionlessly. He would try and trade her and Ellen and Kim for the tablet. He seemed very confident that Dean would make the deal. He didn't need any other information from her about the matter, she decided, remaining silent.

As if he'd read her thoughts, he nodded understandingly. "Silence is indeed a potent weapon in many situations. Fortunately, this is not one of them. I need very little from you. But I'm afraid you will suffer."

The door behind her slammed shut and she spun around. The truck was empty except for the two of them, and she thought suddenly of weapons, anything she could use to disable the man in front of her. She didn't see his hand rise suddenly, just felt cold metal against the side of her neck and the sharp stab of the needle as it slid into the artery in her neck.

* * *

Ellen leaned back against the metal side of the truck, pressing her hand against the throbbing ache in her head. Despite all their preparations, the little boy had walked in unimpeded and just taken them, she thought caustically. She'd overhead him telling the dark-haired man that Alison had disappeared in the keep – a second demon child, she wondered, caught in the trap as the little boy and the man should've been? It was possible. The boy had sounded upset.

There were two demons guarding the truck, she knew. They'd been standing there when the back flap of canvas had been lifted. She thought back through all she knew, trying to find the pieces that would fit together, would give her an idea of the shape of the plans of those holding them, something she could use.

"What do they want with Alex?" Kim asked her in a soft voice. The slender doctor had a bruise, swelling and purpling the side of her face and a tooth missing from the front of her mouth.

"I don't know, hon," Ellen said, her voice equally low. If they had been ordinary men, she might have hazarded a guess as to what they wanted, but they weren't, and her feeling was strong that whatever needs they had, it didn't include the assault of their prisoners.

They had Chuck. She'd seen him dragged between two demons and put onto another truck as the sky had lightened. She thought they'd have just been killed and dumped if they'd found the tablet. And they obviously hadn't searched for any of the translations of the tablet either; the dark man who'd taken them from Jesse and chained them together had come out with the two nephilim carrying nothing else.

Looking at her hands, the wrists held together by simple handcuffs, she thought of how she was going to get out of here. Kim wouldn't survive on her own, over the miles of country to get back to the town. Alex might, she thought, depending on what shape she was returned in. They'd probably been looking for Ben, she thought. Had thought they'd all be together. They _had_ all been together, but Ben had been running a message from Maurice to Liev about the tunnels at the time they'd come in. Alex was the key to Dean. She and Kim were more or less expendable at any point. Would they miss her if she slipped out once Alex was back? She wasn't sure. The demons outside the truck had been talking earlier about the route they were taking. Due east mostly. They'd mentioned Cleveland, but she didn't get the feeling that was the final destination.

* * *

The flashlight beam bobbed on the outside of the canvas covering, giving them a moment's warning. It'd been dark for close to an hour, Ellen realised, glancing at her watch as the flap opened and Alex was forced back to the bench seat beside Kim. She held the cuffs tightly as the chain was pulled through the rings, her fingers curled up under her palms.

"Alex, are you alright?" Kim leaned toward the younger woman, looking worriedly at the dazed expression on her face.

"Fine," Alex said, shaking her head slightly as the cuffs were refastened around her wrists. "They didn't hurt me."

"What happened?" Ellen asked shortly, leaning forward a little as the demon left the truck and zipped the flap.

"He just talked," Alex said in bewilderment. She looked down at the floor, her brow wrinkling a little. "Didn't even ask me any questions, just kept talking about what a great world they were going to make once they had the tablets."

Ellen frowned. "For ten hours?"

"Is that all it was?" she said, lifting her hand carefully and rubbing the heel over her temple. "It felt like a lot longer than that."

The engine of the truck started, vibrating through the floor and into their feet. "Listen, both of you," Ellen said, glancing at the back flap as the truck lurched forward. "These cuffs are just standard issue, nothing to them."

She let the cuffs drop. "Hold out your hands."

Kim and Alex leaned forward, extending their hands to her, and she slipped the reconfigured bobby pin from her sleeve and began to work on them. "What else did he say, Alex? Did he say where he was going to trade with Dean?"

"He said the army was expendable," Alex told her, brows drawing together as she tried to remember the details of the conversation. "I think he said Ottumwa. Is that right? Iowa? I thought they came through Missouri?"

"The demons said something about Cleveland," Ellen said, huffing a strand of hair back from her face as she twisted the wire in the cuff lock. "Iowa would fit if they're angling north. What did he mean, expendable?"

"I don't know," the younger woman said, exhaling. "A lot of it just seemed to be rambling, as if he wasn't talking to me, but to himself."

"Did you get the impression he wasn't as together as he seemed before?"

"Sometimes, yeah." She looked away. "He was vaguing out, from time to time – would stop talking and just stand there."

The lock sprang free and Ellen turned to the other one. "We've got a couple of hours at most. I don't know if they're going to make regular stops or not, but we have to go while we're moving."

"Ellen, that's a risk for you and Alex," Kim said sharply.

"It's a risk we have to take," Alex said immediately. "Without us, the Grigori have no bargaining power."

"I think we're on the 14," Ellen said. "Not far out of Hastings. It's about forty miles back to Lebanon. But the further we go, the harder it'll be to get back, and the more likely they are to find us before we can."

"You want us to jump out of a moving truck?"

"Yeah," Ellen said, glancing up at her with a grin. "And preferably before we hit the interstate." She eased the pin and felt it catch the mechanism, the click almost inaudible above the roar of the engine. "There's a section of this road where the bank drops away, and ends up in a forest."

"We came this way to Michigan last time," Alex said, nodding as she remembered the road, rubbing the marks on her wrists.

"We'll go there," Ellen confirmed, working on Kim's cuffs. "There's a bend before it, the headlights of the truck behind us will be off the truck for at least a few minutes. That's the window we have."

"How soon?" Kim asked, lifting her free hand to the bruising on her face as Ellen worked on the last shackle.

"Less than fifteen minutes."

* * *

"Can you see if they're walking behind us?" Alex said in a low voice, crouching beside Ellen at the back of the truck.

Ellen shook her head. "They lost most of the force they brought," she said. "Everyone's riding now, that's why we're moving fast."

If there had been demons walking alongside the trucks, escaping like this would've been impossible. But with the bend and the darkness and the hillside, she thought it might work. Always provided they didn't run into tigers, her mind threw at her. She repressed a shudder and pushed the thought aside.

"Alright, it's just up ahead," she told Alex, glancing past her to Kim. "You ready?"

The doctor made a face. "As I'll ever be."

The truck took the turn slowly, and Ellen watched as the headlights from the vehicle behind them shifted from the back and played over the hillside on the other side of the road as it followed. She forced the canvas up and slipped out.

They weren't going fast, but the road surface was unforgiving and her knees and ankles took the brunt of the impact, as she forced the roll across the shoulder, feeling the ground drop away from underneath her at the edge. Steeper than she'd thought, rolling down across the dried up and flattened grass, rocks and low bushes, one arm curled protectively over her head, the other around her stomach.

There was shouting from the top of the road, and the sound of gunfire, and she scrambled into a low crouch as the slope began to even out, running doubled-over for the shelter of the woods that had grown up the valley's sides. She stopped behind a tree trunk and dug into the flattened leaf fall on the ground under it.

Voices. Lights. She heard the thump of feet on the ground distantly and lifted her head slightly, looking frantically around, pushing backwards down the slight incline to get deeper under the trees. The hole was all black when it caught her peripheral vision and she stopped, focussing on it suddenly. Fox den. The thought came whole to her. The opening was quite large.

Above her on the steeper slope she could hear the demons pushing through the undergrowth and she launched herself into the hole, wriggling as it closed around her further in, smelling dry earth and nothing else, hoping it meant the den had been abandoned. The narrow tunnel opened up again a little after a few feet and she wormed her way faster along the soft earth, freezing as she heard muffled voices much closer.

She couldn't turn to see behind her, unsure now if there'd been enough bends to hide her feet from anyone pointing a light into the hole. For a man, it was far too small, she thought, and her pursuers might not realise that she could fit into it, a part of her aware that she was clutching at any hope at all.

No light penetrated the darkness she lay in, her breathing shallow and silent. Ellen lay there for a long time, unwilling to move in case they were waiting, just outside, waiting for her to move or come out.

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

Rufus watched the crane cable rising, lifting the block of concrete with it, his heart racing as he waited to see if anything else was going to fall on the man lying under it.

He had no idea how Singer could've managed to get so much of the fucking tower to fall directly on top of him, but if they got him in one piece and still breathing, he intended to make the sonofabitch pay for the scare.

The casualty figures for the two days of fighting hadn't been high on their end. He'd seen Merrin when the army had left and most of the wounded would survive. That'd made him doubly furious when Mel's call about Bobby had come in.

"Alright," Joseph yelled, waving an arm at the two stretcher bearers. "Gimme five minutes then come in – carefully!"

The ex-paramedic picked his way through the rubble and crouched beside Bobby, face expressionless and hands moving gently over the old man's body, his thumbs-up easily visible less than five minutes later. Rufus let out his breath in a long, whistling exhale and walked across what was left of the keep's bailey.

"How long to rebuild this?" he asked Liev, the builder looking up at the still-standing walls.

"Oh, a month or two, if we can get the materials, and the people," the swarthy builder told him. "I'm pretty amazed this much is still there," he added, pointing at the join in the walls that were blackened and scorched. "Tower took a direct hit from something pretty big."

Rufus nodded sourly. All of the destruction of their food and shelter had just been a diversion. Crowley had known about most of the defences and sent his demons in anyway, to make enough noise and confusion that they could slip the cambion in without them being questioned. It would take months to rebuild the order's safehold, and he was just grateful that they hadn't decided to burn the library while they'd been in there. They'd lost Davis and Aaron in the fighting, along with five of Franklin's soldiers. Adam, Marla and Jerome were all critical and of course Kim had been taken. He wondered vaguely if they'd thought she was their only doctor.

Turning at the heavy crunch of boots behind him, he saw the two men carrying Bobby over the rubble and to the truck, easing the injured man inside. He hurried to the rear, nodding at Lee and Perry as they walked around to the front of the truck and waited for Joseph to climb in first, following him and sitting near Bobby's head.

"He gonna be alright?" he asked the young man tersely.

Joseph looked at him and nodded. "Bruised, broken ankle, cracked ribs. He'll be okay." He looked down at his patient. "He's unconscious at the moment, just exhaustion, I think."

Unconscious was alright, Rufus thought. Unconscious would put off the moment when he had to tell the man that Ellen had been taken.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Jasper looked at the mess and sighed deeply. Oliver and Frances had been working for the last twelve hours, clearing away what had been broken or destroyed beyond repair, helping Deirdre and Mitch to put the comms and computers back online, to get the works that had been collateral damage of the shooting sorted from the rest and put downstairs for the restoration work that would take months, if it could even be done.

He hadn't liked the pompous professor but he would miss him, he thought tiredly. And Aaron, Jerome's assistant. The place seemed almost unbearably empty, just the four of them now rattling in it on their own. It also, he thought sourly, seemed horribly naked, vulnerable with the illusions and the door with its massive locking rings completely gone. How easy would it be to replace those, he wondered?

"We have a communiqué from France," Deidre said, looking over her shoulder at him. "Do you know Jerome's status?"

Status, Jasper wondered? Was the woman so utterly immersed in her technology that she related everything to working or not working?

"He's still in critical condition," he told her, a slight edge to his voice. He saw that she picked up on it, her eyes brightening fractionally, and sighed inwardly. People dealt with their shock and grief in their own ways, he rebuked himself. It wasn't his place to judge her for how she expressed that grief. "Bob was pretty certain he'll pull through but we won't be able to talk to him for a few more days," he added, more gently. Jerome had remained conscious until he'd given the cambion's message. The bullet had taken a chunk of liver and colon on its way through the professor's body.

"It's on the printer," she said, sitting down and typing in a progress update to the other chapters.

He walked across and picked it up, scanning over it. The Qaddiysh had managed to get through to Illinois. His brows shot up as he read that they'd found Dean and Sam Winchester along the way. Reaching for the phone on the desk beside him, he dialled the single digit that connected him to the exchange and the two digits that accessed the keep. The phone rang six times before it was picked up.

"West Keep," the soft female voice said.

"Maria?" Jasper asked.

"Yes."

"It's Jasper, is Rufus there?"

"Not right now, he's gone to Lightning Oak."

"What about Maurice?" Jasper frowned, belatedly remembering the news about Singer.

"Yes, hold on, I'll get him for you," she said.

"Just pass –" he stopped as he heard the clunk of the handset being dropped at the other end of the line. A few minutes later it was picked up and he heard the hunter's warm tenor at the other end.

"Jasper?"

"Yeah, we got a message from Michel," Jasper said, looking down at it. "The Qaddiysh are in Missouri. They found Dean and Sam in Illinois."

"Good," Maurice said, relief obvious in his voice. "How soon will they be here?"

"They've got a vehicle," he said, thinking about the route. "The army cleared the 70 when they came through. Perhaps a few hours?"

"Alright, thanks."

Behind the relief was trepidation, and Jasper put the phone down, running a hand over his head as he thought about the news that would be waiting for the leader and his brother. He was glad he didn't have to deliver it.

* * *

_**Red Cloud, Nebraska**_

The bridge was still there. It was a relief to see it as she looked at the turgid flow of the snow-melt. The curving metal frames were flaking paint in sheets, rust dark and growing beneath it, but still intact.

She pushed her hair back from her face, ignoring the stinging cuts and started to cross. Only another twenty miles from here, Ellen thought tiredly.

She'd waited over an hour before easing herself back out of the fox's den on the other side of Hastings. The trucks had long gone but she didn't trust the road and had followed the stream west until she'd reached the outskirts of what had been Hastings. From there, she thought it was safe enough to follow the highway south. Hearing the wolf music in the hills, she'd debated finding a place to hole up, and rest until dawn, but the urgency to keep moving had kept her on her feet, the bright moonlight flooding over the cracked road in front of her almost as strongly as day.

From memory the road would lead her straight home. Rufus and Bobby could organise a pursuit team, to watch the army, if nothing else, while they tried to figure out where to look for Dean and Sam. And if they're dead, she asked herself bleakly? Trapped or killed by the archangel they'd gone to help Cas contain?

She shook her head, trudging between the spans, the hard soles of her boots clocking on the concrete. It was impossible to imagine that either could be killed. Against her better judgement, she'd offered them help when she'd realised whose boys they were. Against her better judgement, she'd put herself and the people she knew into danger by continuing to try to help them. The memory of a young man, sitting on the edge of the table in the bar, his face stony with grief, came back to her. Even then, she'd wanted to help him because she'd had the strong sense that fate – or destiny – or whatever you called it – had held those young men deep in its machinations, and they'd needed all the help they could get. She didn't regret that her choices had killed many of her friends. She still didn't know if the spur-of-the-moment decision to restock the pretzels had been chance or her own fate playing out as it was meant.

Bobby had given her Jim's journal, when they'd moved from Michigan to Kansas. In it had been the truth of what had happened down in Devil's Gate Reservoir, the gate Bill and John had gone to investigate. The pain from those truths had been immense, not just what she'd learned about her husband and his death, but the injustice she'd done to John, the hatred that driven her for so many years. She'd come to understand why John had taken the blame, why he'd lied to her about what had happened, but she didn't know if she'd ever forgive him for that.

She could help his sons. That was all that was left to do. Help them to do the jobs that fate seemed to be putting in front of them. She could add her shield to those that had gathered around them. They weren't dead, she knew with a spearing jab of clarity. Death wouldn't have allowed it. They'd been removed from the scene deliberately because the threads hadn't yet played out, but they weren't dead.

Looking up, she saw the road stretching out ahead, gently rising and falling over the low hills that surrounded her. A glance back showed the bridge more than a half a mile behind her. The sky was getting lighter, silver streaks slowly spreading from behind the eastern horizon. If she picked up her pace, she could be home by midday.

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

Sam sucked in his breath as he saw the black smoke rising in the distance. Beside him, he felt his brother tense.

The wide car bounced over the fields when Dean had to leave the road, craters and piles of earth and concrete and asphalt littered over it where the mines had gone off. He followed the deep tracks of the army vehicles around the half-burned woods and over the trampled pastures and ploughed fields, slowing but not stopping as they passed the broken fort, its blackened stones tumbled across the scorched earth.

As the land rose, they saw the shattered and smoking remains of the keep to the north-east, and the bodies of the dead, piled and burning, around the standing buildings. Sam's gaze swivelled west, eyes widening as he saw the gaping holes in the massive curtain walls that surrounded the town – what had been a town and had been rebuilt into a fortress.

A group of men in the churned up mud of the fields of Ghost Valley looked at the car as it approached them, rifle barrels rising in unison as they came closer. Dean felt a flush of relief sweep through him as he recognised Jackson's grizzled face under the soot and dirt.

"Missed all the fun," the farmer said to him when he stopped, gesturing around vaguely. Dean looked at the pyre.

"How many we'd lose?"

"Not many," Riley said, stepping close behind Jackson, his face equally grimy with the unpleasant task. "These are from the other side."

"Keeps got hit pretty solidly," Jackson told him, his faded blue eyes narrowed as he looked into the car, his gaze flicking around the faces watching him. "But it was just a diversion."

Dean nodded. He knew that. They'd only come for the prophet and the tablet. He didn't know how to ask what he needed to know.

"You get any reports from the keep or the order?"

Both men dropped their gazes, and he felt his heart sink.

"They got Chuck," Jackson said carefully, looking at the ground. "And they took some hostages."

"We lose much of the stores?" Dean asked, looking past them at the fields. He'd known it for the last four days, known they would be too late, known it was the only reason to get them out of the town. It was taking everything he had to keep his imagination under control. "Stock?"

"No, not much," Riley said, his face drawn beneath the muck covering it. "We'll be able to clean up."

"I'll see you later."

They nodded and stepped back as he drove past them, over the field to the small road that led into the town.

"Crowley'll make a trade," Sam said, bracing his hand against the roof above him as the car bounced over the bank. "He only wants the tablet and the gun back."

Dean didn't respond, his gaze fixed on the broken battlements that had come into view as the humvee growled in low range along the road.

* * *

The small group of offices that had been turned over to the hunters living in the keep were virtually undamaged. All of them were there now, sitting wherever there was a space, the dust cleared out and a fire burning on the hearth as they listened to Ellen.

"Expendable?" Dean repeated slowly. "That was what she said?"

Ellen nodded, chewing and swallowing the rich stew in between questions.

Looking around at the faces in the room, his gaze flicking back to his brother every few minutes, Sam saw nothing but cold resolve in them. Everyone there was experienced. They had all earned the right to be here, putting their nickel's worth of opinion into the plans that were being formulated. Only someone who knew his brother very, very well could've picked the underlying tension that hummed in him.

"Did she see Crowley?"

"I don't think so," Ellen said, pushing the clean bowl away and sitting back in the chair, brows drawing together as she thought about the brief conversation. "She said that the Grigori was rambling, as if he was talking to himself, not to her."

"Losing it?" Rufus asked.

Ellen shrugged. "Maybe."

"We should be so lucky," Bobby growled, unable to scratch the itch under his cast that had been driving him nuts all afternoon. His relief, when Ellen had walked down the road to the outer towers and been brought into town with the guards, had just about given him a coronary. He didn't think he could deal with that kind of scare again. And the emotions had centred on the half-inch square of skin, just above the bone and four inches from the edge of the cast, that itched unbearably.

"They want to do the trade in Iowa," Nate said thoughtfully, turning to look at Dean. "Why?"

"Too far for us to hit them and take it all back?" Sam suggested diffidently. He'd been wondering about the location as well. It was too far for them to mobilise sufficient people to get there, against the fallen and the half-breeds, they needed weapons and a strategy that wouldn't get them all killed. But the sense that there was something else persisted as well.

"Maybe," Dean said, his eyes dark and studying the floor at his feet. "Doesn't matter. We'll go in five hours – me and Sam, Elias, Rufus and Win," he decided. "Everyone else is on clean up here and rebuilding."

There was a general movement as the hunters who weren't going got up and finished their drinks, making their way out and back to their responsibilities. Win got up and Elias caught her arm, drawing her back down to the chair she'd been sitting in again.

Dean looked at Rufus. "How many were left?"

Rufus raised his brows at Ellen. "We got a body count here of about nineteen hundred," he said. From the side of the desk, Ellen nodded in agreement.

"I thought they had maybe a hundred and fifty, two hundred left at most."

"That's too many for a direct attack," Bobby pointed out, pouring another inch of whiskey into his glass.

"Yeah," Dean agreed absently. "What about their vehicles? When they stopped, did they make a camp, or just pull off the road in a line?"

"In a line," Ellen remembered. "I don't think they expected to be stopped that long."

She saw an expression flash over his face, there and gone before she could identify it. The army had stopped for Baeder, she thought belatedly. For Baeder to talk to Alex. It made no sense, unless Crowley had other reasons to call a halt. She hadn't seen any signs of it.

"Who's the best long-range shooter we got?" Dean asked Rufus and Bobby, gaze cutting between them.

"Besides you?" Rufus glanced at Bobby, one brow lifted. "Toby."

Bobby nodded. "Did two tours in Afghanistan before they let him out."

"Win, could you tell Toby to come back?" Ellen looked at the slim, wiry girl. She nodded and left the room.

"What do you want to do?" Elias asked Dean, leaning forward slightly.

"They'll expect me to come with backup," Dean said slowly. "That'll be Sam, you and Rufus. Toby and Win can hang back, as far as needs be to get the shot. Franklin did up some of his specials on the ammo we use in the M40, we'll take that."

"It won't work on the fallen or the half-breeds," Sam said quizzically.

"No, but it'll keep Crowley in his meatsuit, and keep him from zapping off somewhere. He'll want the tablet and the gun to be in his hands," Dean said, rubbing a hand along his jaw. "The big half-breed, his job seems to be protecting the Grigori."

He shrugged and stood up, walking distractedly to the fire. "I think the plan is to get them and then abandon ship – take Chuck and the tablet, the fallen and the half-breeds and leave everyone else there."

"You want to stop Crowley from leaving?"

"Even if Baeder or Dietrich take the tablet, they're not interested in the Colt," Dean said, turning around to look at them. "And Crowley is. And that gun can kill them all."

He didn't have to say that if he'd been there, nothing would have stopped him from using the gun. Every hunter in the town had realised that if they'd pulled the damned thing out instead of hiding it, they could've stopped the half-breeds, the nephilim and gone out hunting the Grigori and the King of Hell as well. It'd dawned on Rufus much later that'd been Dean's plan all along.

Sam looked up as the awkward silence was broken with Win returning with Toby. Dean nodded to the hunter.

"Need your shooter's skills," he said, and Toby sat down, taking the whiskey that Ellen offered him.

"Range?"

"Likely to be outside a mile."

"No problem, depending on other factors," Toby said, smiling slightly at him as he swallowed the whiskey and set the glass down. "But you know that."

Dean nodded. "Win'll spot for you."

"Okay," he said, giving her a smile. She looked back at him coolly.

"We can be compromised here," Dean added, glancing at Sam. "If there's a problem, you stand down, no arguments."

Toby looked back at him. "Sure."

"Okay, we're leaving in four hours. Two cars. The roads are crap so pick something that can handle them."

Toby and Win got up and walked out, Elias finishing his glass and putting it on the table as he got up as well.

"Toby takes out Crowley and …?" Ellen asked, leaning her chin against the palm of her hand.

"His gun takes a .50 calibre round," Dean said shortly. "One to immobilise Crowley. And one of those through the half-breed's head'll knock him down. I get the Colt back and put everyone else down."

He got up and shrugged. "Depending on the situation."

"Dean –" Rufus started. Dean walked to the door, cutting him off as he turned back.

"Get your gear together and get some rest, we won't be stopping once we're on the road," he told Rufus and Elias sharply then walked out.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Penemue looked around the room curiously. It was laid out in a similar manner to the French safehold. He turned as Jasper came down the stairs. The old man glanced at the _Irin_, close-cropped and thinning silver hair framing a rounded face, the razor intelligence visible in pale blue eyes contrasting sharply with the amiable smile on the face. He wasn't a legacy, he'd told them on their arrival, merely a professor of dead languages. The man who'd died, Davis Cutland, hadn't been a legacy either, nor the short, plump woman who had looked them over the previous evening with equal parts suspicion and astonishment.

"Jerome is still unconscious," Jasper said abruptly.

"You were lucky," Shamsiel remarked, looking around. "I am surprised they didn't wipe you out entirely."

Baraquiel shot him a quelling look and Jasper smiled. "I am also surprised they didn't," he told them. "Particularly when the nephilim could not find the tablet. Nothing we had touched them."

"No," Penemue agreed. "We do have something that will 'touch' them, but still, the heart must be removed."

He saw Jasper's gaze slide away to look at the box that sat on the table.

"That's it then?" the scholar asked, walking slowly to the table. "Pandora's Box."

"Yes," Baraquiel said, following him. "The French order had a means of following the energy of the goddesses – have you been able to replicate that device here?"

He looked down at the situation table, at the clusters of red and yellow and blue lights that were static or moving over the map.

"No as precisely as Michel," Jasper said distractedly, staring at the box. "Deirdre and Mitch are working on that now." He looked up. "We are running to several different priorities here at the moment."

"We understand." Penemue nodded. "The closing of the gates will reduce the danger of both Hell and the Grigori."

"The closing of the gates is essential to prevent the archdemons from gaining control," another voice said from the library steps and the _Irin_ turned around.

"Ah, this is Father McConnaughey," Jasper said, as the priest walked down the steps. "Father, this is Penemue, Baraquiel and Shamsiel."

"Interesting times indeed to meet the sons of God who fell with their Grace," Father McConnaughey said, bowing his head slightly to the Qaddiysh. "I was given a message."

Baraquiel exchanged a look with his brothers. "From an angel?"

"Yes," the priest said. "I believe it was an angel. I was told that the gates must be closed before Crowley could make any other alliances, before the Fallen could escape their bonds."

Shamsiel lifted a brow. "Anything else?"

"I was told that the Winchesters would be the ones to close the gates," Father McConnaughey told him. "One of them, at any rate."

"Which one?" Baraquiel asked.

"I don't know," the priest said bluntly, looking at him. "We have assumed it would be Dean."

He watched the fallen angels exchange a look. "Do you have further information about that?"

Penemue shook his head. "No, nothing that is fixed."

"My colleague, Father Emilio, believes it will be Sam," Father McConnaughey said, and he saw that the Qaddiysh were aware that he was fishing, their expressions carefully neutral.

"It could be," Shamsiel agreed mildly. "The instructions were, as I recall, rather open to interpretation."

Jasper hid a smile as he saw Father McConnaughey's face twitch.

"The instructions are so vague as to be practically useless," the priest snapped at the angel. "And our prophet is gone."

"Did you get the details of the trials?" Penemue asked curiously.

"The first two, we have the most basic idea," Jasper interceded smoothly. "Enough to attempt them. We don't have any details on what the actual contract with God is, and the wording is rather ominous."

"The ordeals will test '_unto death_', according to the tablet," Father McConnaughey confirmed sourly. "Not a great incentive to take them on."

"Contracts with God have always tested faith, Father," Shamsiel said, a faint touch of rebuke in his tone. "You should know that."

"Faith is difficult to maintain in the situations that Heaven have brought down upon us," the priest argued. "Even for those who have lived by it their entire lives."

"It is in the times of utmost despair that faith is most important," Baraquiel said quietly. "No matter what Heaven is doing – or Hell – or anything else that walks the world in darkness, Father, it will be faith – in our Father, in each other and in ourselves that overcomes."

The priest turned away, muttering something under his breath.

"Didn't catch that, Father," Jasper said brightly, flicking a glance at the Qaddiysh.

Father McConnaughey turned and scowled at him. "I was merely asking myself if these gentlemen have met the Winchesters." He turned back to look at Baraquiel. "It is their skills and knowledge and their own courage they look to, not faith in a power that has deceived them from before they were born!"

* * *

_**US-34 E, Nebraska**_

The black car sped along the roads, the headlights barely visible as dawn greeted it, powering into the growing light and throwing a long, lilac shadow onto the asphalt behind it.

Dean manoeuvred the car around the worst of the holes and cracks without thought or effort, the occasional glance in the mirror showing Toby behind him, mimicking the Impala's movements and maintaining a steady four car-lengths back in the green SUV. He'd decided to leave Rufus behind at the last minute, unwilling to risk a man who could protect the population effectively, and a friend who'd already risked his life several times in following him.

Behind the layer of rigid control he was holding onto, fear and rage and memory and speculation were lapping and surging at the walls, the tension between feeling and thought, and the tight grip he had over himself manifesting in aching muscles and a white-knuckled stranglehold on the wheel. He was going to burn out before he got there, he thought caustically, looking down at his hands and deliberately flexing them again.

He would kill Crowley. And the Grigori. And the half-breeds. For a fractional second, the images were so powerful, so vivid in his mind's eye – the blue fire of Colt's bullets penetrating and immolating their bodies – that he felt a frisson of release from the iron bands of tension compressing his chest, as if it were already done. He shook the feeling off impatiently.

A lot would depend on the situation, he told himself savagely. And his ability to react with it. Opportunities would be there, that he was sure of. They always were if you knew how to look for them. But what form they'd take, how easy they'd be to see and use, that was the difference in the life between those who reached thirty, and those who didn't.

The other two men in the car were silent, sometimes lost in their own thoughts, but sometimes, he knew, wondering about him. Sam knew him well enough to not even attempt a conversation, keeping his concerns locked away. He could feel Elias' gaze on him from time to time, the hunter watching him but not offering anything. He couldn't go near the thoughts he'd bottled up and sealed away since he'd seen the black smoke rising about Lebanon. Couldn't afford to lose the hard, cold edge that would get him through the next few hours. Couldn't let himself think or feel anything that wasn't a hundred percent focussed on what he was going to do.

Most of the signs that had been present along the roads had fallen or been cannibalised for other uses. He knew this stretch of highway, well enough to know that Creston was coming up. The half-breed had told Jerome the trade would be in Iowa, and Alex had Ellen that the Grigori had mentioned Ottumwa.

He slowed as the bend came up, indicating and watching Toby in the mirrors as he pulled over. The SUV pulled up alongside his window.

"We didn't get a specific location for the trade," Dean said, window down as he looked across to Toby. "I think he's gonna use the railway crossing, about two miles this side of the town."

In the other vehicle, Toby nodded. "Elevated and clear view all around."

"Used to be fairly clear," Dean corrected him. "To the north-east of the tracks, there's a hill, had some woods on it last time I went through there, probably a lot more now."

"Think they'll post guards?"

"Yeah, definitely," Dean said. "But not past a few hundred yards. You take the back way in, through what used to be farmland to the north, the highest part of that hill is near a gravel road north of the 34."

"I know the place you mean," Winifred said, turning to Toby. "It's thick woods there now, but the line of sight is straight down to the overpass."

"Right," Dean confirmed. "We'll give you an hour to get into position then we'll be coming through."

"If they're not there?" Toby asked, scratching an eyebrow.

"They'll be there," Dean said, his certainty growing as he thought about it. The town itself would be ruins, too many places for ambushes if Crowley thought he was bringing more people. The railway line would force a one-on-one meeting, down the embankments and on the open ground of the tracks. He might or might not think of a sniper, knowing that he couldn't be killed with one of their bullets and the range would be too great for Colt, even in plain view.

"Alright," Toby agreed readily. "Who do you want first?"

"Crowley," Dean told him. "Head shot if you can. I need him immobilised. Then the half-breed. The others can't just up and disappear without them."

The green car moved slowly out past him, heading north at the next turn. Dean watched them go, his fingers drumming restlessly on the wheel as he dragged up every detail he could remember of the overpass before the town. It'd been wooded, and there was a small river running alongside the tracks, he remembered. He thought that Crowley would use the iron tracks as a half-way point. He wondered briefly who they'd send down to get the tablet. The half-breed, more than likely. The others would remain at the top.

* * *

_**Ottumwa, Iowa**_

He came around the bend in the road and saw them, on the other side of the concrete span that carried the road over the railway line, trucks and the demon-possessed soldiers and the unmistakable figures of the fallen. Slowing, he pulled in on the shoulder a few yards before the asphalt joined the concrete.

"You ready?" Sam asked, looking at his brother's profile. Dean didn't answer, turning off the engine and getting out of the car, and Sam sighed, opening his door and following. The rear door clunked shut as Elias got out and looked over the roof of the car at Dean.

"Down at the tracks," a demon called out from the other end of the span. Dean nodded, turning to get around the low concrete wall that bordered the edge.

The embankment wasn't long or particularly steep and the three men hit the flattened ground divided in half by the metal tracks in a couple of minutes, watching the opposite bank as Crowley and the Grigori walked down from the road and stopped along the top.

They should be good, clean targets up there, Dean thought distantly. His stomach knotted as a tall young woman pushed Alex and Kim down from the highway, the two women stumbling and blinking in the bright light, hands bound behind them. They looked unhurt, he told himself.

Crowley glanced at them and back down to the tracks. "Alright, you can see they're in good health. Where's the tablet and the gun?"

"Send them down first," Dean called back, his fingers itching for the Colt's grip. "When they're safe, you'll get them."

"No," the man standing behind Alex said, shaking his head. "No, Mr Winchester, we will send them down to you when the tablet and gun is on its way back here." He turned, gesturing and Dean saw the half-breed step out from behind Crowley, his face expressionless as he looked down the hill.

"Mr Draxler here will take the tablet and the gun," the Grigori said loudly. "When he is a reasonable distance from you, the women will be freed."

"Not going to happen," Dean said shortly, folding his arms over his chest as he looked up.

He saw the man draw a gun from his belt, holding the barrel against Alex's temple as he gripped her bound wrists with the other. Crowley glanced across at the concrete parapet that lined the overpass, the sound of rifles cocking loud in the still air.

"On the contrary, Mr Winchester," the Grigori said. "This is exactly how it will happen, or this woman will die in the next thirty seconds and you will be mown down by our shooters. And we will take the stone and gun from your dead body."

Dean looked at him for a moment, then nodded. They were, at least, predictable he thought, letting his shoulders slump. It was the least he could do to be seen as predictable as well. He watched the half-breed continue down the slope toward them, skirting the brown and withered-looking clumps of dead grass and low bushes that speckled the incline.

The headshot would take Crowley as the half-breed began the climb back up, he thought, looking at the ground and listening to the cambion's descent. The second shot would hopefully put Draxler down long enough for him to get across the tracks and to him, get the Colt and start shooting. He was hoping Toby would see the other targets and keep firing. They hadn't been able to plan out anything further without knowing how the situation would be.

Pulling the gun from his belt and the tablet from his jacket pocket, he waited, the seconds ticking off in his head.

He looked up as Draxler stopped in front of him. An inch or two shorter, the cambion made up for it in breadth of shoulder and the hard, heavy muscle that was evident even under the loose combat jacket and pants. Looking into his face, he saw that the half-breed hadn't forgotten their last encounter, and wouldn't make the same mistakes again. His eyes narrowed as a flickering expression lit the dark eyes for a moment as he handed the gun and stone to the man. He couldn't be sure, it'd been too quick, but it'd looked something like an apology. Draxler was turning away, long strides taking him across the iron tracks, to the beginning of the upward rise of the embankment.

The flat crack of the rifle was too far away to hear, and the hole appeared to one side of Crowley's forehead as if by magic, the impact knocking him to the ground. Dean was sprinting for the half-breed as the second shot hit Draxler in the side of the chest, sending him sprawling against the slope.

Sam and Elias both turned, drawing the short-barrelled sub-machine guns from beneath their coats, strafing the concrete overpass with automatic fire as they bolted under its cover.

On the top of the embankment, Baeder looked at Jesse and nodded and the little boy disappeared abruptly. He watched the eldest Winchester reach the cambion and laughed, the shrill, raw cackle echoing down the narrow ravine.

Sam's head snapped up to see the Grigori silhouetted against the overcast sky, head thrown back as that laugh broke through the sudden silence.

Dean dropped onto Draxler's back, hearing the whoof of the man's chest compress under him, air driven out and his grip on the Colt loosening. He was reaching for the gun when the two gunshots rang out, one after the other with barely a second between them. He looked up, time slowing down as he watched the men push Alex and Kim toward the edge, telescoping out as he watched them fall, seconds drawing out to minutes, then hours as he saw them tumble headfirst down the slope, rolling bonelessly to the bottom.

Draxler twisted around. The boy appeared next to him, touching his wrist and the cambion disappeared from under Dean as he staggered to his feet, the Colt forgotten. He was running, something booming in his ears, something shuddering in his chest, something screaming in his head.

Elias watched Dean reach them and drop to his knees. He looked back up, seeing Crowley rise, the Grigori and the cambion close up together and vanish, seeing the demon-possessed slowly realise they'd been abandoned, backing away from the overpass, turning and running.

Staring at his brother, Sam remembered Chuck's vision … _and the whole world seemed to hold its breath in the silence that filled the narrow ravine_. The silence was there, too loud against his ears, too thickly surrounding the man kneeling next to the bodies of the women. Walking across the heavy gravel bed of the railway, he saw the blood stain as Dean lifted Alex, spreading out from the hole in her back, coating his brother's hands and seeping into his sleeves. On the ground next to him, Kim's face was slack, her eyes open and unseeing, and he knew a similar stain would be spreading out under her as well.

Dean shifted his grip as Alex's head fell back, her eyes half-open but covered in dust, a long scratch from the roll down the hill open and almost bloodless along her cheek. His fingers pressed against the side of her neck, harder and harder as he tried to find the pulse that should've been there, ducking his head to feel for her breath along his cheek.

He heard footsteps behind him, recognised Sam's tread. "I can't find her pulse," he told Sam.

And as the words came out, their meaning became clear to him.

Against the walls of the control he'd been holding onto, something titanic shoved at him. _If you let go now, if you let that in, you won't get up again_. The thought flashed through his mind and he tipped his head back, mouth opening as he dragged in a deep breath. The dead weight in his arms caught at him and he lowered her body to the ground, turning away and closing his eyes, batting Sam's hand away from him as he got to his feet.

_You know what you have to do_.

He knew.

The walls held. The tumult receded and silence, frigidly cold, with fingers like razor blades, dropped over him, filled him up and pushed out everything else.

_Dead inside_.

Maybe Famine had been right all along, he thought disinterestedly. Maybe Death had been right too. It didn't matter now. There was a job to do. A demon to kill. The thoughts were tasteless and dry in his mind, no emotion attached to them, no feeling flickering as he stared at the scrubby slope in front of him and considered how he would do that.

"Dean?"

He looked around at his brother's voice. "Yeah?"

"We need to make a pyre," Sam said softly, gesturing vaguely behind him.

"Right."

"Dean …"

His eyes narrowed a little as he focussed on Sam's face, seeing the pain in the hazel eyes, in the lines that bracketed his little brother's mouth. He knew what Sam wanted to know.

"I'm fine, Sam," he said briskly. "Build the pyre, I need to check on Toby and Win."

He started to climb the embankment before his brother could respond, feeling the pull and stretch of the muscles in legs and back, concentrating on that visceral sensation as he reached the top and looked at the black car. There was another road that led to the hill less than five hundred back behind the bend, he thought distantly. He could use that.

At the tracks, Elias walked to Sam and laid a restraining hand on his arm. "Leave him, let him deal however he has to."

"He doesn't deal," Sam said worriedly. "That's the problem."

Elias followed his gaze as they both heard the engine start. "He'll have to eventually, but that's up to him, not us," he said quietly. "We've got a job here, Sam. Let's get on with it."

* * *

Dean got out of the car and walked along the narrow trail that led into the woodland and curved up to the summit of the low hill. He could smell burning and he rubbed a hand over his face, disoriented slightly by the smell and his brother's conversation. He wouldn't be able to smell the pyre from a mile away, even if the wind was blowing in this direction, which it was not.

Coming into the small space the hunters had chosen, he looked down at the charred ground disbelievingly.

_The boy._

The conversation with Jasper came back to him and he remembered seeing the boy appear next to Draxler, seeing him touch the man and disappear them both right from under him.

The boy was cambion too.

Young. _Extraordinary power_.

It explained the attack on the keep and how they'd gotten Chuck from the spell circle. Aside from the stones, nothing they'd found could affect the half-demon, half-human monsters.

He heard a low groan and spun around, finding Win lying several yards from the clearing, her clothing burned off half her body, the skin beneath weeping and blistered, her eyes rolling in agony as she tried to drag herself through the trees.

"Win," Dean said tightly, moving around her and putting a hand on her unburned side. "It's Dean."

"Boy," she said indistinctly, the skin pulling back from the corner of her mouth.

"I know," he told her. "Hold still, I'm gonna pick you up."

Another moan and he saw the fear in her eyes.

"Okay, just stay here," he said, looking over her quickly. They had a good medical kit in the car, he could cover the burns before he tried to move her at least. "Don't move. I'm coming back."

He straightened up and walked down through the woods to the car, unlocking the trunk and grabbing the kit and the thick blanket from above the well lid. He could hear his father's voice in his head. _Biggest danger with burns is infection. You cover them with sterilised gauze until you can get to a hospital. Put the vic out and irrigate with saline if they're already covered in crap. You remember this, Dean? Yessir_.

He did. He remembered all of it. Everything. He hurried back up the trail, the wash of relief disorienting when he saw she hadn't moved.

There were two shots of morphine in the kit, each one allowing about nine hours of unconsciousness. The stuff depressed respiration and it was hard to work out beforehand how much was too much.

"You allergic to anything?" he asked, pulling the cap off the needle and tapping the end.

"No." The word was barely a breathy exhale and he looked down at her. She would overload on the pain shortly and that would bring its own problems. He found a vein on the inside of her elbow and slid the needle in, depressing the plunger and giving her half the shot, washing the needle with a squirt of alcohol before recapping it.

Fingers pressed lightly against the pulse at the base of her throat, he looked at his watch, timing her heart beat and the in and outtake of breath as the drug took her deep.

When she was out, he sluiced the bottle of saline solution over every burn he could see, picking out the melted and charred bits of fabric that were all that remained of her clothing on that side, sluicing again until he was reasonably sure that nothing remained. He ripped the sterilised packs open and laid the gauze pads over the burns, winding open-weave bandages around them as lightly as possible, covering every inch. He opened the blanket and lifted her onto it, folding the edges over and easing his arms under her to take her weight.

* * *

Sam looked up as Dean came back down the slope, frowning as he saw the damp and bloody patches over his brother's shirt.

"What happened?"

"The boy, the cambion, got to Toby after the shot that hit Draxler," Dean said shortly, looking at the mound of branches and twigs that the men had built while he'd been gone. The sight brought nothing more than a careful appraisal. "Win wasn't targeted but she tried to save Toby."

"Where is she?"

"In the car."

"Out?"

Dean nodded. The bodies were wrapped in blankets, lying together on the top of the pyre. "Where'd you get the blankets?"

"Crowley's army took off, left a lot of their vehicles here," Elias said, walking up to them. "Guess that's what Baeder meant by expendable."

Sam cleared his throat and looked at Dean. "You, uh, want to –"

"No. Just get it lit," Dean told him brusquely. "We have to get Win back to the keep."

Elias nodded and turned back to the pyre, lighting a branch and thrusting it deep into the pyre. They'd emptied most of a can of gasoline over the wood and it went up with a rush of air and flame as the fumes caught.

The three hunters watched it burn. Sam's gaze slid sideways, seeing his brother motionless and hard, arms folded over his chest, his gaze fixed to the centre of the fire, his face expressionless. He couldn't see Dean's eyes, but he had the feeling there would be nothing in them, just the same cool appraisal with which he'd looked over the pyre, making sure the job was done right.

When the bodies were afire, Dean turned away and Elias shook his head at Sam, gesturing for him to follow his brother up the hill. The Impala was already facing west, and they got in, Sam watching the smoke rise behind them through the side-mirrors until the bends of the road and the distance hid them completely.

Dean took them back to the SUV up by the woodland where Toby had been killed. Elias got out without a word and climbed into the vehicle and the two cars retraced their path back to the highway as darkness settled in over the countryside, headlights on, silence filling both.

* * *

_**US-77 S, Nebraska**_

Sam watched the headlights on the black road ahead of them, the shadows of the humps and cracks obvious, Dean avoiding them in plenty of time. The car was filled with the soft roar of the tyres, the rattle of the heater, the breathing of the wounded woman on the rear seat. They hadn't said a word to each other since bypassing Omaha.

He'd seen this before.

It wasn't the same, he knew. Back then, in amongst the grief had been his father's final words, the last command for the obedient son. Dean'd told him that those words had been screaming in his head the whole time he'd kept them from him. He remembered being so angry that his brother hadn't told him sooner, that he'd completely missed the meaning of that confession, the doubled and then tripled impact of losing the father he'd loved, trying to accept what he'd been told, realising what his father had done to save him and where he was. With a hindsight that came much, much later, he'd realised how impossible it'd been for Dean to say anything, to let anything out over the months that had followed his miraculous recovery. He'd suffered the loss and the terror and the guilt alone for as long as he'd been able.

He'd been twenty-seven then. Now, the layers and walls and armour went much deeper, were much thicker. It didn't matter that he knew Dean had shut down and refused to go through the process he needed to recover. He'd never admit to it, and he wouldn't allow a discussion of it. Not now. The situation wasn't the same but the coping mechanism was still in place and he would handle it the same way.

Back then, their father's death had changed the dynamic between them. Not a huge amount, just enough so that Dean had come to see his entire life as a single job. Glancing at the stony profile to his left, Sam wondered if that would be the same as well. He could easily imagine the job his brother had signed himself up for now. The one that would give him a death that he wouldn't be ashamed of, the one that would let him think of dying as an honourable thing to do, even if his reasons for wanting that were not.

Running a hand impatiently through his hair, Sam turned back to the window beside him, the cool glass soothing against his temple. He remembered – in shocking, Technicolour detail – how it had been for him for the endless months after Jess' murder. All the details he'd gone over and over, wondering if anything he could've done would've made a difference. Back then, it had all seemed to him that he was the one who'd failed her, failed to see, failed to say, failed to stay with her and keep her safe. He knew now that it those details hadn't mattered at all. Brady would've killed her anyway, no matter what he'd done because that was the plan. The ultimate plan to build the key to the last seal of the Cage. Lucifer had delighted in sharing every detail of it with him.

Was that why Alex had been killed, he wondered? To force a course of action onto his brother? To take away the things that might've changed the path he was supposed to be on? Death had told him that he would close the gates of Hell and Heaven. But Cas had said that Dean had been changing the lines, changing the paths. Was the If statement still functioning?

When he'd gotten into the black car after a week of searching every square inch of Palo Alto, he had been unable to talk to his brother about any of it. The nightmares, the waking visions, the god-awful pain that had felt as if he'd ingested acid and it was eating its way through him. He'd taken a leaf out of his older brother's book and had bottled it up, swallowed it down and pretended he was fine. He hadn't been but he couldn't have stood to see the pity in Dean's eyes, couldn't have borne to talk about the relentless, unending agony of it. And he knew that Dean couldn't either. Not back then when John had dropped dead on the hospital floor, and not now with the memory of the gunshot and the hill and the half-open, dust-filled dead eyes staring up at him.

Elias'd been right, he acknowledged unwillingly. To force a confrontation, to open a crack in whatever armour his brother had built in that moment between trying to find a pulse and realising that he would never find one, that would only weaken him, only give him less to live for.

The window fogged as his breath hit the glass in a long, slow exhale.

* * *

_**Hidden Lake, Montana**_

The dark-haired woman knelt beside the clear waters of the lake and cupped her hands, filling them and drinking deeply of the ice-cold liquid, letting it spill down her chin and chest, tipping her head back to the sun and closing her eyes. The pull was very strong to the south. She opened her eyes and turned her head, her face hard and expressionless as she looked at the mountains that cupped the valley and lake. Many, many miles to the south. She felt the hunger and madness as her child beat its fists against the rock that imprisoned it. They were all here in this vast land, she knew. She could feel a fainter pull to the east, uncertain if that was due to distance or to the strength of the prison. It wouldn't matter in the end. She would find them and break their cages, release them back to the world and the growing population her sister was creating. Life throbbed potently all around now, hers and the other's. They were made to create a balance between all things but it had always been a race, to see who could out-make the other. This time, she thought contentedly, she would be the winner. Her children were faster, stronger and she had more time.

She wiped the last droplets from her face and got to her feet. The sun would set soon and she always walked faster at night.

In the burrows and dens, the setts and nests and tunnels, the animals shuddered in their sleep as she passed indifferently by, their dreams twisted and distorted, filled with primal fears and tastes and smells. Filled with copper and iron and the bitter taste of long-dead carrion.


	15. Chapter 15 When the Pale Moon Dreamed

**Chapter 15 When the Pale Moon Dreamed**

* * *

_**April, 2013. Boston, Massachusetts**_

Dimly lit. Dank with the ever-present whiff of the sea and the distant rumble of the waves beating against the cliffs. Low ceilings, the massive hardwood beams strung here and there with chains.

A dungeon.

Chuck looked around nervously. He was in an honest-to-god fucking dungeon.

"Sit down," the demon's voice said from behind him and he dragged his eyes from the stone-lined walls and back to the table under the single, bare lightbulb. "Sorry about the décor."

"I need paper," Chuck said, sitting down in the uncomfortable wooden straight-backed chair and looking at the stone on the table's surface. "I – my process – I'm a writer."

"Of course," Crowley said, his eyes rolling as he gestured sharply to the demon by the door. "I've read your work, some of it, at any rate."

"You have?" Chuck looked up, genuinely surprised.

Crowley heard the faintest trace of pride in the writer's voice and tucked his chin against his chest, eyes closing. "Yes, it was … well, a bit lurid here and there, but overall, very interesting."

"Uh … thanks." Chuck looked down at the table. "I didn't realise at the time that what I was seeing was actually happening, of course."

"No." Crowley took the pile of notebooks from the demon and set them beside the prophet. "We're on something of a time-table here, Chuck. So get to it."

Looking at the stone, Chuck reached for it hesitantly. He didn't know what happened, exactly, when he touched it. He knew he was no longer there. No longer himself. From the reams of paper and the cramping ache in his hand the last time he'd come out of the deep trance, he knew he worked non-stop. But it took days for the information that had passed through him to filter through into his mind, into his memories and much of what he wrote under the spell of the stone he didn't remember at all.

The demon watched him pick up the tablet, saw his body contract, fingers gripping the stone tightly and a light flashing deep within it, arcing through the prophet's hand and arm and body. Chuck sat rigidly, eyes wide open and staring and his right hand began to move, filling the page of the notepad under it.

_Amazing_, Crowley thought. _A pipeline, straight to the Word of God_. The Machiavellian workings of the mastermind who'd thought it all up never failed to amuse him.

He turned to look at the demon beside the door. "Stay next to him, make sure he keeps going."

The demon nodded and walked to the table as Crowley headed for the staircase, drawing the door of the room closed behind him. The weight of the Colt and the box of bullets were tugging at his suit pocket and he hurried up the stairs and along the wide hall to his study, unlocking the door impatiently and pushing it open.

Moving behind the polished ebony desk that was identical to the less-than-material echo in the plane adjacent to this one, he unlocked and opened the cupboard beneath the return, lifting out the pearwood box and opening it. Replacing the gun and ammunition in the box, he closed the lid and returned it to the cupboard, locking the door.

Eric's rationality had returned with the act of revenge against Winchester, he mused as he poured himself a glass of fine whiskey. He hadn't been sure it would, and he'd been almost positive Dietrich had felt the same, had seen the Grigori's eyes cold and speculative on his brother several times. But it seemed, for now, it was all hunky-dory again and with acquisition of both tablet and prophet, they were well on schedule to gain the knowledge they needed. Not that the question of Winchester had been resolved. Not yet.

The file sat on the desk and he walked slowly back to the leather chair, dropping into it and setting the cut-crystal tumbler on the blotter beside the inch-thick folder. Alicia had been quite thorough, he thought, flipping open the cover. The books had helped enormously, of course, filling in the sort of gaps that no other source could've provided. He wondered briefly if Dean or his brother had read them, had realised just how much of their private lives had been exposed.

Baeder had acted without this knowledge about the man, without knowing how revenge had driven him most of his life. It would be interesting to see if Winchester pursued the Grigori for it now. He had quite a track record for achieving whatever he'd set out to do, the file was filled with accounts of angels and demons defeated and killed outright, archangels thwarted in their plans, escape after escape of the traps that had been set for them. No wonder Raphael had been practically foaming at the mouth to get a chance at him – and still, he'd failed.

The loyalty factor was particularly troublesome. There were, very occasionally, people who inspired that kind of following. But there was no indication that any of the populations in Kansas or Michigan thought that the Winchesters were divinely led, or different in any fundamental way. Rather, the loyalty was drawn by something else, something he had yet to discover. Closing the file, he rested his chin on his hand, thinking about the man who was renowned through all three planes as a spoiler, an uncommon but effective wrench-thrower. What he needed, he decided, was to talk to someone who would know how far it all reached back. Someone who had been there.

* * *

Draxler sat in the boy's bedroom, his arms around Jesse as the boy's shoulders shook.

"She just disappeared," Jesse mumbled, his breath coming in small hitches and gasps as his grief rose again. "She was in front of the woman we took, reaching out for her and then she was gone and I couldn't see her or hear her or even feel her anywhere."

The cambion's big hand rubbed the boy's back slowly as he envisioned the situation. It had to be a trap of some kind but he'd only heard of one thing that could trap them, his kind, and it was obvious, not invisible.

"There was no mirror there, large or small?" he asked Jesse gently.

"There wasn't anything there," Jesse said, his cheek resting against the man's chest. "Even after, I couldn't see anything, and I looked, I looked hard!"

"It will be alright, Jesse," Draxler said in a soft voice. "We will find her."

"She isn't …," he stopped, looking up at the man's face. "Do you think she's alive?"

"If you couldn't see a body, then yes, I think so," he said, his thumb wiping the tears from the boy's cheek. "It was a trap, of some kind."

"I can't feel her, Hubert," Jesse said, his voice rising. "I could always feel her, no matter where she was."

"Traps are different, Jesse," the cambion told him. "They hide the essence, the soul."

He lifted the boy easily and drew back the covers of the narrow single bed, setting him down on the pillows. "Go to sleep, it will be morning soon and we will start searching then."

Pulling the covers over the thin shoulders, he wondered how easy that would be. The demon might know of another trap for them, although Crowley had said nothing so far. The Grigori didn't know. He'd questioned them when they'd arrived at the house and they'd shrugged. But if the humans had found such a device, then so could he. He had time.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

"Sam, look at this," Marla turned to him, handing him a thick sheaf of the thin notepaper Chuck had used to write the transcription on. He took it, brow creasing up as he saw the thicker paper in between the sheets.

"What is it?" he asked, setting the pile on the table and turning over the top sheets. His indrawn breath and glance around the room was automatic, even though he knew his brother wasn't there. Dean had been at the keep for the last week, working with Liev and Ryan on the repairs to the main structures, driving himself physically from dawn to dusk and then well into the night with whatever research anyone could come up with on the gates, the guides and their few scant notes on the first trial and the contract.

The note was in Alex's handwriting, backward slanting, even and neat, affixed to the thin sheet of paper by adhesive, an arrow drawn to the text beside it. It was the thin account of the second trial, he saw, his hand lifting and running through his hair as he read both the account and her opinions of it.

_This doesn't give enough detail. But the tablet is not a linear progression of ideas, not a narrative. The prophet was supposed to study it, as the theologists study the Bible and the Qu'ran and every other religious text or inspiration – is there more information within the things that appear to be non-related than we've suspected? We need the priests and Jasper going through the typed pages – studying them as Chuck was supposed to have studied the stone. There must be more information in it. Not necessarily hidden but maybe – misfiled? – a means to force more understanding that a simpler structure would have provided? The transporting of demons through the levels of Hell – gives us information that is vital to the second trial. I think there will be more like that – information within the information._

"Where're the sections on demon transport?" Sam looked up at Marla and she turned away, flipping through the stacked reams of typed notes. She pulled out the section, leaving the coloured sheet of paper marking the divisions between sections in place, and handed it to him.

Skimming over the pages, he saw it and realised what she'd meant. These were the detailed instructions on moving around the accursed plane they needed, from level to level, and through the tunnels and caverns that would move themselves without knowing how to stop them – but they hadn't been included with the trials. Closing his eyes and tipping back his head, he wondered how long it would've taken them to pick this up without her pointer. Too long, most likely.

"The first sections," he said to Marla, gesturing at the stacks of paper. "That were the histories and the hierarchies and the day-to-day stuff of running Hell – they all in order?"

She nodded, pushing a stray lock of dark brown hair back with one wrist. "They're in order and divided into their sections," she told him. "Like that one."

"We need to get Father Emilio and Father McConnaughey over here again," he said, glancing impatiently around. "And Jasper needs to start on this first thing in the morning."

"The additional information, needed for each trial, it's held in different places?" she asked, moving closer to him to read the note again.

"I think so," Sam said, abruptly aware of the brush of her arm against his. "Hidden in very plain sight. We might have enough to get moving on the first trial." Which would work for his brother, he realised. Dean was getting more and more short-tempered every day he was forced to be here instead of being able to get on with the job he wanted to do. He'd already put Ted Miller temporarily out of action when the burly farmhand had made an ill-advised comment after a few too many. Dean'd stopped after the first punch, but he hadn't pulled it and Ted would be spending the next few weeks drinking his food through a straw, his jaw wired shut while the fracture healed.

The hunters, and Franklin's grunts, had shrugged it off, especially those who'd been there. But the civilians weren't as ready to forgive it, Ted's friends had already been spreading the word that those who could kill with a blow should be forbidden from being able to do so to the people who couldn't defend themselves. It was a rather specious argument, considering the situation and the provocation of the moment, but Merrin had told him it had gained some support in some areas of the settlement.

Dean didn't give a rat's about what the population were thinking of him now, Sam knew. He didn't care about anything other than closing Hell, killing Crowley and the Grigori and finishing what he'd mockingly called his deal with Death. Half-tanked and filled with a fury that had crackled through him, Sam recalled that conversation with a slight shiver. His brother had somehow managed to convince Bob to flatline him when they'd returned from Iowa. So that he could talk to the entity, demand to know what'd happened to their deal. Bob had brought him back after seven minutes. He wouldn't talk about what happened in those seven minutes, but the rage had been growing ever since.

Pushing the escalating discomfort of those thoughts aside, he focussed on the pages in front of him. He needed more people but they had to be good, had to know what to look for, what to extrapolate from the fuzziness of the information. He needed someone who could decipher more of Chuck's handwriting than he could, although his ability had improved over the time Alex had been correcting the pages for him.

The Qaddiysh would be useful, he thought. And it would give them something to do other than sit on their heels waiting for the keep's leader to show some interest in the box they'd struggled to bring halfway around the world to him.

"Sam?" Marla's voice pulled him back to the library and he looked at her, noticing the deep shadows around her eyes. "You should probably get some sleep, if we're going to call everyone in tomorrow?"

"Yeah," he agreed, looking down at the papers in his hands self-consciously. "You too."

He got up and shuffled the papers together, leaving them in a pile next to the transportation section. If he could find all those little details, if _they_ could find all those details, he would still have to convince his brother to let him go along. He had no idea of how he was going to do that.

"_Bon nuit_," Marla said softly, walking from the table to the hall. He nodded and smiled. She'd told him that she was French, but had come to the US in her teens. There was still an occasional hint of an accent, in some words, or in turns of phrase, but she invariably said _good morning_ and _good night_ in the language, and it sounded somehow better than the regular version, he thought as he followed her to the end of the library and turned in the opposite direction to take the stairs to his room. More intimate.

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

_The smell of baking bread. Sunshine, pouring in through the wide, multi-paned windows and lighting the scrubbed pine table and wide-board floors to a honeyed gold. Smooth, creamy skin and wide, blue-green eyes that crinkled up as they looked at him_ and his breath left him in a soft, gentle sigh that was part contentment and part longing, the image clear and sharp in his mind.

His brows pulled together unconsciously as the scene shifted around him, _the room gone, the sunlight vanishing as the sky loomed forbiddingly overhead, bitterly cold and everything around grey and brown and lifeless_. _He shook his head, closing his eyes and seeing it anyway, a slow-motion fall down the hillside and laughter, like a crow's, filling his ears and the echoes of the shots fading away. He turned away and saw the dark-haired woman, staring down at him from the concrete overpass, eyes dark and cold and her lips covered in bright red, kissed with blood given freely from the creatures that stood behind her, the pale-eyed man, mouth bristling with pointed fangs, a tall and slab-muscled man with the head of a wolf, a beautiful woman whose skin melted and reformed as he watched, the tangle of long, red hair lifting in the rising wind to twist and writhe above her. He heard breathing, deep and unsteady and turned around, and the dog stood there behind him, staring at him, blood-red eyes glowing from above the wolf's open and dripping mouth –_

Dean blinked as his chin slid off his palm, catching himself before he hit the table. He sat up, staring uncomprehendingly at his watch. Three forty-three. Morning or afternoon? A glance at the darkness outside the apartment's narrow windows confirmed morning.

He needed sleep. Wanted it. Looking at the bottle that sat to one side of the piles of books and notes and printouts he'd been searching through, he wondered how much it would take to knock him out past the point that his mind could fill his sleep with nightmares that were becoming worse and worse, every night. _Too much_, he told himself sourly. Too much to be able to do everything he needed to do. He looked away, closing the open book in front of him and getting to his feet tiredly.

The curtain wall had been extended and the foundations of the extra towers were being poured. Every day, he'd been down there with Liev and the couple of hundred civilians, digging, clearing the rubble, pouring concrete, setting stone. When it was too dark to see and the stocky builder called a halt, he came up here and found something to eat, immersing himself in every bit of lore or myth or real facts he'd been able to find about the gates, the guardian, the guides and Hell itself and what it would take to get it all finished and done with.

He hadn't thought any further than that, and he didn't want to.

Walking aimlessly around the room, looking unseeingly at the shelves, he veered into the kitchen after a minute, pulling a beer from the fridge and opening it, the cap catching on the ring that he was wearing.

The thick silver band had been his mother's. A reminder. That's all.

Seven minutes he'd spent looking for Death, seven minutes and the doughy shade of grey colouring Bob's face when the paddles had brought him back told him that it'd been too long, that Bob had thought he wasn't coming back.

It hadn't helped. He'd searched for Death – for Tessa – for anyone – finally resorting to a string of curses that he'd hoped would goad the entity out, but there'd been nothing. He'd given the middle-aged doc a near-coronary for nothing. The impulse to wear the ring again had been irrational and powerful and he'd followed it without a thought. He'd seen Sam look at it, the next day, but his brother hadn't asked and he couldn't have told him why in any case.

He tipped the bottle neck into his mouth and barely noticed the cold liquid rush down his throat. It didn't matter how exhausted he was by nightfall. Didn't matter how much he pushed at reading through the information he had from nightfall to past midnight, to the deepest watches of the night. He couldn't get tired enough to keep the dreams out. He couldn't get drunk enough.

He finished the beer on the second long swallow and tossed the bottle into the trash can in the corner, walking to the bedroom. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he pulled off his boots, letting them drop to the floor. He left his clothes on top of them and dragged the tangle of bedding more or less over himself. He might get an hour's sleep before he was woken. He might not. He didn't know.

* * *

"Dean, for the moment, there is not enough information to retrieve the prophet or the tablet, nor to initiate the trials for the closing of the Gates," Penemue said reasonably, standing beside the framework the hunter was erecting along the side of the wall.

"We have the means to intercept Ninhursag and Nintu in the next few weeks as they cross this continent," he continued, wondering if the man was even hearing him. He'd been trying to get a commitment from the hunter on action for three days now and so far, he'd had zero acknowledgement in return. Dean ran the nail gun down the form work sheet, nails thudding through the heavy formwork ply into the frame, the close air in the corner of the new bailey sheening him in sweat.

"My priorities haven't changed since yesterday," he grunted, reaching the bottom and straightening up to look at the Watcher as he wiped a bare arm over his face.

"We all understand how important this is to you –"

"Apparently not," Dean said neutrally, turning back to the wall. "Or you wouldn't keep trying to change my mind."

Penemue watched him pick up the next sheet and align it against the straight wooden frame. The clack and hiss and thud of the gun started again and he turned away, giving up.

"You're lucky he's civil to you," Ryan said to him, falling into step with him as they walked out of the half-built bailey. "Most people he either ignores completely or insults until they leave him alone."

Penemue nodded distractedly at the young builder's comment. "Do you know where the other senior hunters are?"

Ryan's brow wrinkled up. "You mean Rufus? Or Bobby? They're over at Lightning Oak, mostly right now. A lot to repair there too."

"My thanks," Penemue said, lengthening his stride as he headed for the gates. He needed someone to take notice of what he was saying, and perhaps the older hunters would know of a way to get through to Winchester that he'd been unable to think of.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Elena and Baraquiel sat at the end table, slowly deciphering Chuck's handwritten notes. The _Irin_ picked through the spidery scrawl of words, marking details that seemed more relevant than simply the information stated, looking for the clues that he was sure the Grigori were trying to find as well. He knew that they needed the power of the Word, in the stone itself, believing it would guide them to the tablet that had instructions for controlling the angels, for controlling Heaven. He wondered if they'd realised how much was contained in the tablet they held.

_The crossing of the rivers that border the lands is perilous. The boatman must be paid for the crossing, a coin of silver is the price of the journey. All souls being carried from one plane to the other require a payment._

But not all souls need to cross on the boat, he thought. There were places on the rivers where crossing was possible, easier and harder places. Led by the demon, Winchester had found such a place.

_The gates determine the approaches to the cliffs of Hell. Each gate has its own parameters. Each gate is controlled by one of the Fallen._

Baraquiel looked up, rubbing his fingers over his eyes tiredly. There were more than nine gates giving entrance to the accursed plane from this world. He frowned at the thought. Perhaps there had only been nine before Lucifer had been given human souls. Did it make a difference? Moloch, Pythius, Mammon and Astaroth had been killed in the siege to raise the soul of Winchester. Abaddon had been destroyed earlier than that, although none really knew the details of what had happened to the archdemon. Were there now only four archdemons still living? How had Crowley taken the Throne of Lucifer if there were? Even singly, they had more power than the demon could ever have hoped to wield against them.

He marked the passage. It was important somehow, although he couldn't work out why he felt that.

_In the borderland, the way is closed. The wolf of Hell guards and opens all doorways to the accursed plane. His blood is the key to every entrance, every crack and fissure in the cliffs._

In the texts held in their own library, Baraquiel remembered the books of the dead. The realm Lucifer had built was ringed with sheer cliffs. Impossible to scale, they walled the accursed plane and the doors that led through them were invisible to all but the angels. And the guardian.

Lying on the table in front of him, the black metal blade of the knife that Penemue had brought from Lucifer's hidden tomb gleamed oilily under the golden overhead light.

"What is that?" Elena asked him softly, her gaze following his to the knife.

"A weapon, specifically designed for hellspawn," Baraquiel told her, lifting the knife and handing it to her. It was very light and her brows rose as she took it and felt the balance through her fingers and wrist.

"Japanese?" she asked, looking along the length of the long blade. "The shape is similar to a _tachi_."

He smiled. "Yes, the man who made it was Japanese."

"_Jokoto_?" She looked at the edge. "I have never seen a Japanese sword like this."

"_Saiko no ken yori mo furui_," he corrected. "Very few have ever seen a blade like this. Kajiwara no Tosabô was a man like you, a hunter. A very skilled hunter. He made this knife, and the others, for a war against demonkind in fifteen hundred and ninety-six AD."

"But it's – it's folded," she said, frowning at him as she looked at the distinctive markings on the blade and laid the knife back on the table. "I thought that technique wasn't in use until after Christ?"

"It wasn't," Baraquiel said. "He developed the composite steel blade and added the blood that gives it its colour – and its power. His weapons can kill any hellspawn," he added softly, looking down at the pages in front of him. "Except the Fallen."

"So this blade can kill Cerberus?"

Baraquiel nodded distractedly. "Yes, it will be essential to the first trial."

Watching his face, Elena asked, "What is it?"

"There were four left, that I know of," he told her. "Four archdemons and the crossroads demon took control of Hell. That should not have been possible – for any demon."

"Perhaps he found a way to bind them?"

"Yes," Baraquiel agreed. "Perhaps."

Father Emilio turned over the last page of the first section of Hell's histories and leaned back in his chair. Much of what he'd read he'd already been familiar with, the basics of it, at least. The origins of the pit and the non-corporeal and non-human demonic creatures that had inhabited it. The bottomless abyss. The ancient forces that had been the guardians before Lucifer had fallen and had banished them. Hell, in one form or another, had always existed.

Across the table, Father McConnaughey's head was bent over the papers on the table, bushy silver brows drawn together as he read, the steady rustle of paper signalling another page turned over. At the end of the table, Sam and Marla were talking quietly, heads close together. Father Emilio's attention sharpened a little on them. Marla had begun her initiation into the order, he knew, although all such things were on hiatus until Jerome had recovered fully. He watched as Sam turned to her, his smile washing the tension from his face when she smiled back, then the glossy dark curtain of her hair swung forward as she ducked her head to look back down at the pages in front of them.

Sam had come a lot closer to understanding the things that had driven him along the road he'd chosen, the Jesuit considered. And more essentially, to accepting them. The overwhelming desire for penance, for punishment, was, he thought, being relinquished to the desire for atonement in its place. And hope always came much easier when the future could be envisioned.

"Jasper," Katherine said, looking down the table at him, the urgency in her voice breaking through the priest's thoughts.

"What?" Jasper asked as he got up and walked down to her. "What are you looking at?"

"The third section of the histories of the demons – the human demons," she said, moving her chair to give him room to sit beside her.

"What have you found?" Father Emilio leaned across the table toward her.

Glancing at him, she gestured at the pages that Jasper was reading as he lowered himself into the chair beside her. "I'm not sure but it looks as if it relates to the cambion."

Sam's head lifted and both he and Marla turned to look at her.

"Out loud, Jasper," Katherine said dryly, seeing the interest.

The professor looked up and nodded, going back to the top of the section. "_The soul, even perverted, even blackened beyond possibility of redemption, may find entry into the living, into the sons and daughters of Adam. This possession of another may only take the form of imprisoning the original soul, using the body to its own ends, or it may go deeper, infiltrating every cell including the very instructions that live in every cell and are passed from generation to generation_."

He glanced at Sam. "That's what I was telling you, about the cambion's creation."

Sam nodded impatiently. "What else?"

"_The demon may begat another creature in this state – a creature with its own true power and soul, the issue of the tortured soul and the imprisoned soul and the soul of the woman who will bear it and bring it forth. The creature is cambion and an abomination in the eyes of Heaven and of all in the world_." He took a breath, his eyes on the page. "_Joining the planes, the mind of the cambion draws from both until maturity. As the cambion ages, the ability to draw on the power of the planes diminishes_."

"We know that," Father Emilio said mildly.

"Wait a minute," Jasper told him, holding up a hand. "The cambion soul is unique –"

He stopped reading and lifted his head, staring past Sam to the wall of shelving. "I know this," he murmured, half to himself. "I've seen this before."

"Jasper, we've checked every possible source on the cambion here and in the other chapters –" Katherine said, exasperation in her voice.

"Not about the cambion," the old man snapped, getting up from the chair and pivoting on his heel. "It was an account of the different souls, pre-Imperial China … I know this, goddammit!"

Katherine, Sam and Marla stared after him as he almost ran from the library, hearing his footsteps pounding down the hall.

"What's the rest of that text say?" Marla asked Katherine, gesturing to the pages.

"The cambion soul is unique in that with the death of the creature, there is no resting place for it," Katherine continued, pushing her glasses firmly onto her nose. "Neither Heaven nor Hell can accept the soul."

"That's it?" Sam glanced at Marla and then at Katherine. "How does that help?"

"It's the first mention of the cambion from the tablet," Katherine said. "That it's acknowledged here suggests that there will be more about them."

"If Chuck got that far."

The normally stiff expression of the silver-haired researcher softened as she nodded. "Yes, if he got that far."

None of them wanted to dwell on the thoughts that filled their minds on the prophet's current situation.

It was an hour before Jasper came pounding back down the hall, a plastic-wrapped manuscript in his hand.

"I knew I'd seen this before," he said breathlessly, setting the fragile text on the table. "The Mirror of a Thousand Souls."

He threw himself into the chair beside Katherine and unwrapped the text. Sam saw Katherine frown as she stared at the characters on the fine parchment.

"That's not _hanzi_."

"No, much earlier," Jasper said, dragging on a pair of gloves and picking up the tweezers as he lifted the first page aside. "It was an account of a Chinese magician, a black magician who made deals with demons for power –"

He found the page and leaned closer to it. "_The mirror captured the souls of the abominations, leaving their bodies empty and untenanted. The souls were visible behind the glass, the incantation and the metal that backed the backed the mirror holding them there forever_."

"The magician passed the mirror to the first Emperor and it was in the royal line for centuries. In 1644, Li Zicheng captured the Forbidden City and it disappeared. It reappeared in the seventeen hundreds in Russia, a part of the treasures taken over by the revolutionary army that destroyed the Romanovs and the Tsarist rule, and it disappeared without a trace again," he told them. "Legend said that it was cursed, and anyone who held it would face treachery from their own people, but the older lore was that it contained the souls of the half-demons and demi-gods, who whispered to those who passed and incited the unrest."

"Any proof that it actually exists?" Katherine asked him dryly.

"Quite a lot," Jasper said acerbically. "There are photographs of it in Alexander Palace."

"But no one knows where it is now?" Marla looked at him, one brow raised.

"No," Jasper said, looking down the library toward the situation room. "But with something solid to search for, the other chapters may have more information."

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

Rufus pulled up in the corner of the bailey, the pickup's engine silenced as he turned the key and swung out of the cab. Bobby was still hobbling around, but much of the work had been done on rebuilding the tower in Lightning Oak, and he was glad to be back here, despite the cacophonous noise of the rebuilding that went on from dawn to dusk.

The fallen angel who'd come to see them had been adamant that something had to be organised as soon as possible, and he knew how frustrating Dean could be if he decided to just stonewall. He wasn't sure he was going to be able to make much of a difference to the man's mindset, but they'd agreed, the four of them, that he'd better try.

On cue, he heard the deep voice, snarling at some luckless individual.

"Left foot! Christ, how many times do you have to be told? You wanna get yourself killed?!"

Going through the short tunnel to the other court, Rufus saw Dean first, stripped down to jeans only, sweat lightly gleaming in the warmth of the late morning sunshine, facing Ben who stood, head hanging, a flush of red rising up his neck.

He stopped at the shadowy entrance and watched as Dean dragged in a breath and stepped back.

"Try again!"

The order was snapped out and Ben lifted his head, dropping into a slight crouch as he watched the man circle him. His heart wasn't in it, Rufus thought, seeing Dean's expression harden as he noticed it too. For a moment he thought the man was going to yell at the boy again, but Dean straightened up, turning abruptly on his heel and walking to the steps of the keep to get his shirt.

Behind him, Ben stood watching him, shoulders slumped.

"That's enough for today," Dean said brusquely over his shoulder. "I got work to do."

Nodding, the boy turned away, heading for the tunnel on the other side of the courtyard and the east tower. Rufus walked out of the shadows and over to the steps.

"Get up on the wrong side this morning?" he asked mildly.

Dean looked around at him, dragging the t-shirt that was patchy with sweat over his head.

"He'll never learn if he's treated like a fucking kid," he snapped. "What do you want?"

"Had a visit from one of the Qaddiysh this morning," Rufus said, ignoring the tone. "They dragged that box halfway around the world. They want to get on with it."

Dean tensed for a moment at the unspoken rebuke in the older hunter's voice, then he shrugged. "I need a coffee," he said, walking up the steps to the keep doors without looking back.

Rufus tipped his head back and let out his breath. Not the most gracious of invitations, but better than the possible alternatives, he thought. He walked up the steps and into the keep.

* * *

He followed Dean into the apartment, slowing and looking around as the hunter headed for the kitchen. In the last two weeks, Dean had changed, and as he took in the details of the room, he began to understand why.

Nothing had been altered in here, he thought uneasily. It all looked the same, Alex's coats still hanging on the rack by the door, a thick knitted scarf still lay where it'd been thrown over the back of the long sofa, her notes were scattered over and through the piles of books and sheafs of paper that filled the table. The only difference he could see was the profusion of unwashed dishes and mugs that now littered most of the spaces in between the books.

Dean came out of the kitchen, the light from the windows sliding over the planes and hollows of his face as he set two cups of black coffee on the table, pulling out the chair behind one.

He looked … pared back, Rufus thought, walking slowly to the other side of the table, the bones jutting out, a couple of days' worth of stubble dark against the pale skin, every hard muscle delineated beneath the thin shirt, what little fat he'd had stripped away.

"We can't keep those angels waitin' around forever, Dean," he said, shifting a pile of books from the chair to the floor and sitting down.

"No," Dean agreed readily, looking absently at the pile of notes at his elbow. "No, Jasper called. They were right; both of those bitches are in the country now."

"So," Rufus said slowly, picking up his coffee. "What do you want to do?"

"Bobby talked Boze and Ty this morning," Dean said. "Werewolves are packing up in the forests north of them, they don't know where they came from, or where they found survivors. They talked to Maurice about what he found – it's possible they've come down from Canada."

Rufus saw a flash of irritation pass over the younger man's features, saw the muscle at the point of his jaw bunch for a moment and relax.

"We'll need to divvy up the workload," Dean said, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "I figured Mel and Maurice could get over to Tawas, help out there, take a few trainees with them."

Rufus nodded. "We'll need a strong team for the goddesses, can only take 'em one at a time."

"Sam and Nate can take one of the Watchers, a few of the trainees, go up to Montana and see if they can grab the one coming south now," said Dean. "Michel has movement on the other one, heading south and already past us. Said that they found the location of the lockbox for the first Skinwalker. He thinks she's heading for Texas –"

"Yenaaldlooshii," Rufus murmured. Irritation flashed in Dean's eyes again as he nodded sharply.

"Down in Big Lake. You, me, Penemue," he told him. "We'll take Jack, Perry and Zoe – she's the only one not knocked up from that group. We can't intercept Nintu but we can take out the skinwalker before she gets there, if we leave tomorrow."

"Alright, silver all round."

Dean nodded. "There's a lot more to do here. Bobby, Vince, Elias and Ellen can stick around and keep things going." He looked at the books stacked over the table. "I can't find anything useful here anyway, not enough to get started."

"Bobby said that Jasper might've found a possible way to deal with the cambion –"

"Yeah, he told me," Dean cut him off. "Some kind of mirror. Doesn't help right now. We know they're in Boston, somewhere, but Jerome's tried that spell four times now and the result doesn't change. The Watchers think there's a shield over the location." He shook his head. "If I can't get to Chuck and the gun, I'll need a way in and out of the borderlands to kill Cerberus."

"What about the gate you used before?" Rufus frowned for a moment. "In Pennsylvania."

Dean leaned back in the chair, his eyes slightly hooded as he looked at him. "It's closed. Gone."

Rufus raised a brow. "You had time for a trip?"

He shook his head. "Penemue used a spell, scried for it. Said that someone had been holding it open but whatever they'd done was finished."

It explained a little of Dean's increasing anger, Rufus realised. That would've been a quick way to get to the dog and kill it.

"So, do they know of any others?"

"No." He drained his coffee and pushed the cup aside. "They're looking for them."

"Did you take a look at those knives Penemue brought out of Lucifer's crypt?"

"Yeah," Dean said, shrugging as he got up. "It's got a better reach than Ruby's knife. Supposed to be a killer for demonspawn, but whether it'll work against that dog …"

"Bobby tells me you're planning on going in alone," Rufus said, his voice neutral and without inflexion. Dean glanced at him.

"Trial says only one needed," he answered the non-question expressionlessly.

For a moment, Rufus wondered if he should just leave it. _A man had a right to take the action he needed to take_. Alex's voice murmured through that thought. _He's your friend_.

"There're two others after that one," he said carefully. "Might make sense to have backup until it's down to the wire?"

The dark green eyes studied him. "Whatever it is you wanna say, Rufus, get it out. I don't have the time to waste on you hinting around it."

The warning was there, implicit in the tone. Rufus sighed. "Nothing, it's good."

"Good."

Watching the hunter go down the hall to the bedroom, Rufus chewed on the inside of his cheek, wondering if he was making the right call. He looked around the room again. When he'd lost Nance, he'd gone up to Whitefish, spent a year in the cabin there on his own, unable to deal with anyone else, trying to get as far from the memories as he could. Different people handled grief differently, he thought. But living here, like this, it didn't seem like Dean was doing any grieving.

* * *

_**Chambre d'ombres, France**_

The underground library was warmly lit by lamps and sconces and the low fire. Antoinette leaned back in the deep, comfortable armchair and let out her breath. There were entirely too many legends about magic mirrors, she thought tiredly, setting the book she'd been reading aside for a moment.

"This is it," Alain said from the other side of the room. "Línghún de Jìngzi. The trail stops in St Petersburg, though."

Francesca rose from her chair, the movement reminiscent of a feline as she stalked to the table to look over his shoulder.

"No, not stopped," she said, turning abruptly away. "Jean, those files on the VCheKa, from 1917, please."

The slim dark-haired man turned and walked out of the library.

"You found another lead?" Alain looked curiously at her. Never expressive, Francesca's face was hard and cold as she nodded.

"We were never able to trace the mirror from the Forbidden City to Europe, not even when there was a full complement of us here and in the other chapters, but the Qaddiysh … Baraquiel said that the Grigori had split up, the angel had told him –" she paused as Jean came back in, a bundle of leather-bound files in his arms.

"Look at the faces carefully," Francesca said, opening the first. Affixed to the inside cover, a slightly overexposed black and white photograph showed a group of men, primarily dark-haired, standing together on the steps of a grand building, snow around their feet. Alain stared at them. All wore the same clothing, dark pants and a long, flowing leather coat that came to the middle of the shins, with a high collar and buttoned to the neck. He looked at the note at the bottom.

"_Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия по борьбе с контрреволюцией и саботажем_," he read out. "The All-Russian Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage." He looked up at her, one brow lifted. "The beginnings of the Russian secret service, yes?"

"The two on the right, Alain," she told him sharply.

"I've seen them before," he said slowly, picking up a magnifying glass from the table and lifting it over the photograph, the magnification picking out more detail in the faces.

"You have," Francesca agreed. "They were also in the photographs of the Thule Society, in 1937."

"Grigori?" Antoinette got up and walked to the table. "They took the mirror from the palace? How?"

"This one is Zhydelev," Francesca told her. "One of the group sent to execute the Romanovs. The other is Yakov Yurovsky. He shot Nicholas, Tatiana and Alexei himself. That was July 1918. By the following year, they had escaped to Germany and had become Erik Baeder and Dietrich Eckart, and the mirror and all the other items they'd found went with them."

"Penemue said that their names are really Ashriel and Mossaque," Alain said. "You think they came to Europe to cause civil unrest?"

"I think they came to study," Francesca said, sitting in the chair to one side of him. "I think they were looking for the spells or artefacts that would further their cause. And the power to conduct whatever experiments they wanted to do in secrecy and with authority. The VCheka's reputation for torture was extensive. The Nazi's – certain sections of the Nazi Party were the same."

"According to Shamsiel, they wanted to return to Heaven." A small crease appeared between Antoninette's dark red brows. "How would torture and murder help with that?"

"Yes, they wanted to return to Heaven," Francesca said heavily. "Apparently, they believed that there were ways to do so that were accessible by magic. Why do you think they are searching for the angel tablet?"

"And the mirror is how they're controlling the cambion?" Antoinette asked.

"I don't know, but I would think so." The elegant woman lifted a hand in a dismissive gesture. "The cambion are significantly more powerful than they are, yet the Americans said that they were working under the Grigori's control."

"Michel!" Alain got up and walked down to the situation room. "We need to get a communiqué to the US immediately."

* * *

_**Gallatin National Forest, Montana**_

The mountains towered over them, still capped and mantled in snow, the temperatures freezing and the gusting wind that blew through the valley icy from the glaciers higher up. Sam blew on his fingers as he picked through the lock on the thick metal door.

"Why'd the military have a base up here?" Joseph asked, looking around the long, narrow valley. "There's nothing here."

"Not a base, son, a ground station," Nate said, pulling his collar higher around his ears. "Uplink to the satellite."

"With no power, how do we get it going?"

"There'll be gennies in here," Sam grunted, the rusted lock giving way finally with a deep clunk inside the door. He straightened up and pressed down on the handle and the door shifted inwards. He looked over his shoulder. "Stay here, Nate and I'll check it out."

Behind Joseph, Shamsiel, Lee and Billy watched the empty valley, guns held loosely, safeties off and rounds chambered. Before they'd left Kansas, Michel had tracked Ninhursag from Alaska to British Columbia, advising that the line of travel had been straight, along the Rockies. The goddess hadn't crossed into Alberta, remaining in the high peaks.

Inside the bunker, the concrete tunnel ran straight for ten yards and a set of stairs led down.

"Safe from nuclear attack, anyhow," Nate said dryly, his flashlight beam illuminating the safety notices still attached to the wall.

Sam nodded, going down the stairs. "Air's dry – and clean," he commented, swinging the light when he reached the bottom. More signs, painted on the grey concrete walls directed them to the various areas within the station. "I'll take the control room. You want to see if you can get the power going?"

Nate shrugged and turned right, heading down another flight of stairs as Sam turned left. The control room was several doors along, and he stepped over the dried-up bodies of the people who'd died from the virus carefully. They were bloodless now, but the deep dark stains that covered their clothing showed that they'd been infected and died while in the first stage of Pestilence's disease, the tight skin around their mouths covered with the same stains. He wondered bleakly if there would any useable equipment left in the building, remembering the rage he and Dean had seen on the first test run in Oregon, the wanton destruction the disease had caused.

He stopped as a series of deep rumbles vibrated through the concrete floors and into his boot soles. The building hummed for a moment, then the lights in the hallway flickered, listless fluorescent tubes coming on one at a time from the end toward him.

"Guess the gennies work," he muttered to himself, turning off his flashlight and walking more quickly to the door marked with a large green-painted 'C'. To his surprise, the door opened readily as he pushed down on the handle, and the banks of equipment inside were intact, lights glowing, flickering and blinking on the expanse of grey metal panels as the current ran through them.

The laptop's screen lit up Sam's face as he found the protocols for the uplink, just where Michel and Mitch had told him. He entered the commands and breathed a sigh of relief as the connection was established, the list scrolling down the screen as it was supposed to. Finding the French chapter's address was simple and he'd established contact a few minutes later, the cheerful bonjour from Michel reminding him of Marla.

The list of coordinates appeared a moment later, steadily moving south-east along the road that ran down the backbone of the mountain ranges. Michel's comment followed.

"Still on target, no deviation shown over the last three hundred miles. She passed Helena this morning. You're on target."

The goddess had not taken the easier path of travelling down the roads that ran through the Rockies, keeping between fifty and a hundred and fifty miles to the east of them. Helena was just over a hundred miles from them in a straight line. She would be in the valley before nightfall.

He looked over his shoulder at Shamsiel and Nate, grinning slightly. "Time to lay the trap."

Shamsiel looked at the path of Ninshursag, the coordinates overlaid onto a map of the area now.

"I need to be away from that box," he told the hunters as Sam packed up the laptop and they followed the corridors back to the surface. Both hunters turned to him in surprise. The _Irin_ shrugged.

"I have no soul, nothing to protect me from being drawn in along with her," he explained. "The other planes, they are designed for us, creatures of energy, or those creatures that have been fundamentally altered from their original purpose. It is why you can enter them in your flesh and your blood and your bone, and return, your souls protect you, keep you apart." He gestured to the mountains lifting to the north of them.

"I will move two ridges further north, and let you know when I see the changes she makes."

Nate nodded. "Can you actually see them?"

The _Irin_ smiled, his teeth white against the dark skin. "Now? After so many passes, oh, yes, I'll see them." He stopped as Nate opened the outer door. "And you, my friends, you will feel her when she is close."

Both men swallowed slightly. The effects of the creation goddess were known, although none of them could really imagine how it would affect them, to be so close to her.

He gestured at the bottles of thick, dark red liquid that sat in a line along the hood of the SUV. "The designs will keep you from her notice and they will, to a certain extent, protect you from the effects of the field she generates. So long as the box is open when she enters the valley, it should do most of the work," the _Irin_ continued, chuckling slightly. "The spell is merely a formality, Sam."

"Stay in line of sight, Shamsiel," Nate said to the angel. "Radio won't get through if there's a peak in the way."

"Will do."

They watched him walk fast across the rocky pasture, then Nate looked at the young men in front of him.

"Joseph, you're here with the car," he told him. "Make sure you paint yourself up before she gets here. There's nothing we can do to affect this, so priority is making sure we all get out of here alive and in one piece. Stay on the radio in case we need medical help."

Joseph nodded. Nate looked at Sam who had the box in the bag over his shoulders and had taken two of the bottles. "Sam and me'll take the trapping part, Lee, you and Billy are radio relay. Get to the top of those ridges and pass on whatever Shamsiel tells you."

They turned, each grabbing a bottle from the hood, and headed for the ridge lines on opposite sides of the narrowing valley. Nate looked at Sam.

"Figure we've got that much more control than they do," he said dryly to the younger man. "I'll hang back, two-three hundred yards, but if you fall over, I'll be there to close it."

Sam nodded uncomfortably. "Let's just hope we're both still conscious by the time she gets close."

* * *

_**State Highway 137, Texas**_

Penemue watched the flat horizon, never getting any nearer, at the end of the road the black car roared along. The man driving hadn't spoken since they'd left the keeps, his attention fixed on the road, avoiding the holes and cracks and abandoned rusted heaps easily. The _Irin_ sensed the rage that was being held down but hadn't seen it. Winchester had good control, he thought.

"What do we do if we're too late and she's already released the skinwalker?" Zoe asked from the back seat.

Dean flicked a glance at Penemue and shrugged. "See if we can pick up a trail and kill him."

"Is that possible?"

"All things are possible," Penemue answered, half-turning to look back at her. "But it will be exceedingly difficult."

Dean's gaze shifted to the mirror, seeing the grey pickup behind them. Rufus was driving, Perry and Jack squeezed into the bench seat beside him. With six, it would be possible, he thought, difficult or not. He had a strong sense that they were too late, the creative forces that were loose moved across the world very fast. And they couldn't catch up, could only intercept. Michel had sent through the last location – Utah – for the first vampire. Usiku was locked within the mountains and that's where they'd be heading as soon as they'd killed the skinwalker. That the Grigori also had a base there was a bonus – if he could find it.

A battered and colourless sign flashed by as he manoeuvred the car around a three-car pile up that looked oddly like a piece of welded modern art, the paint gone and the metal left, rusted to a uniform reddish-brown. Big Lake was ten miles ahead.

* * *

Crouching by the side of the well, Dean looked at the four-toed tracks leading away from it. On the ball of the foot, heavy. Around him, chunks of turf and torn earth had been scattered in a fifty-foot radius around the deep hole in the ground, the force exerted from the inside. Penemue had found a small pool of blood, very dark crimson to one side. The sight brought a cold feeling of familiarity to Dean, and he'd shaken it off with difficulty.

He looked up, gaze following the trail which headed straight north-east. The goddess had gone. The skinwalker would be gathering its own children, making more, he thought, remembering what Peter and Elena had told them about the pack they'd encountered in the northern states.

"Loaded with silver," Rufus said quietly beside him as he straightened up.

He nodded. "Sweetwater's that direction. We'll take the road, you follow the trail."

"There's a big water tank at one of the lake," Rufus told him. "We'll meet you there after taking a quick look around."

"This skinwalker," Penemue said slowly, as they got back into the Impala. "It is a man?"

"Shapeshifter," Dean said shortly, starting the engine and easing the car over the dry lake's uneven surface. "One of them."

"It can change form," Zoe said from the back. "Transform into a dog at will."

"A were creature?"

"No," Dean answered. "The werewolf, and all the other variations need a trigger. Like the moon. Skinwalkers and shapeshifters can change without the trigger." He turned to look curiously at the Qaddiysh. "I thought you guys knew all about this stuff?"

Penemue shook his head. "No, we are not like your order of scholars. We were tasked with teaching humanity. Providing the knowledge – slowly – that was needed for the final stage, when Heaven and Hell would no longer be required. Perhaps there are reasons for the monstrosities that God allowed to populate the Earth on the tablets we haven't found, but we have no knowledge of them."

"Typical," Dean snorted. "Doesn't seem like that knowledge was given slowly enough."

"Even within those of us who Fell because we were asked to, there was dissent and argument about the knowledge we had to teach," Penemue said, his fingers pushing the thick, straight black hair back from his forehead. "Azazel enjoyed meddling, and teaching things that mankind was not ready for."

"And that's why Lucifer got him, when he died?"

"Yes." Penemue glanced at him, knowing the history of the Campbells and the Winchesters. "Had anyone been able to foresee that particular line of destiny, it would've been changed."

Dean laughed, a short, humourless bark. "I doubt it. Whatever's going on up there, it's been under construction for a long time. They knew what they were doing."

"They did not realise what they created, in you and your brother, Dean," the Qaddiysh said quietly. "Did not realise the way in which the weapon of their own destruction would be forged and tempered by the trials they put before you."

Dean flicked a glance at him. "You think that's true?"

"We watched a mortal man kill the most powerful of the Fallen," Penemue said with a shrug. "Heaven watched too, though Michael and the Host were here. Raphael saw. And others who have been better at hiding themselves. There was no precedent in any world, or in any dimension, for what you and Sam did that day."

Dean was silent, but the Qaddiysh saw his fingers close a little tightly around the wheel as the car turned onto the asphalt and headed east.

* * *

_**Gallatin National Forest, Montana**_

_There it was_, Shamsiel thought, smelling the change in the air, the deepening and thickening of it as every scent became rich and sharp, flooding his senses. He couldn't see her, although he could feel the fecund femininity, the potent charge of a primal arousal that drove every living thing, to join, to procreate, to multiply and be fruitful and to cover the earth. He smiled a little at the throb in his body, unfelt for centuries where mind had overtaken the considerations of flesh, but as well-remembered as any other purely visceral experience he'd had after Falling.

He watched the grasses sway and stretch up, growing as she passed. Watched the animals and birds and reptiles come out of their burrows and dens in the shadows of the clefts in the hills, ears pricked, eyes wide, fur and feathers and scales standing on end.

"Billy, can you hear me?" he said softly into the radio he held. "She's here."

"Roger that, Shamsiel," Billy's voice crackled and hissed in the static. "She's here. Got it."

The crack of the branches behind him didn't register for a moment, but the thick, rank smell washed over him and Shamsiel turned, staring up at the long ursine snout, the small, dark eyes a little red-rimmed from the effects that were filling the valleys and mountains.

The bear's muzzle wrinkled back, revealing long, yellowing incisors and blasting him with a wave of foetid breath. The Qaddiysh crouched frozen in front of it, staring back, trying to recall every piece of information, heard or read, about the descendants of the cave bears. In front of him, the grizzly huffed and shifted its weight, one paw swinging out casually, the sharp, black claws catching only air as Shamsiel scuttled backward and disappeared over the edge of the rock with a startled squawk.

The drop was short but hard, and he bounced down the slightly sloping ledge, fingers scrabbling for a hold as a bolt of pain shot up through his leg, through his groin and into his back. Above him, the bear looked down, mouth opening and a roar of disappointment echoing over the hard rock.

The second drop as he failed to find anything to stop his descent, was much longer. Air exploded from his lungs as he hit the rounded boulder with his back, and his vision greyed and flickered when the bones of his leg ground together with the impact. The protrusion from the slab-sided upthrust of granite was smaller but flatter and he lay there panting shallowly, fingers clenched into fists as he tried to shut away the white fire that was devouring his leg and get some air back into his chest at the same time.

The grizzly stared down at him and Shamsiel saw the mixture of confusion and frustration as it paced along the cliff edge. He was a little over twenty feet below it, safe enough, he supposed from that particular danger now. Turning his head slowly, he saw the sheer cliff below him. The radio was still clutched in one hand, knuckles raw and bleeding from protecting the device as he'd slid down the rough stone. He hoped it was still working.

* * *

Joseph swore as he tried to see the design he was painting on himself in the small field of view of the side mirror. The liquid stung and stunk, a double insult, and it was supposed to coat his arms and neck as well. He hadn't heard Shamsiel's transmission, but Billy's response had come through loud and clear and he wondered how long he had before the goddess passed by him.

The answer came as he finished swabbing the thick, stinking contents of the bottle over his shoulders and up his neck, his mind suddenly filling with images, blood rushing through his body and his muscles tightening and contracting as he slid down the door of the car and sprawled on the ground.

* * *

On the ridgelines to the south, Billy yanked off his jacket and shirts, pulling out the cork that held the bottle closed with his teeth and pouring a handful of the viscous red liquid into his palm. His nerve endings were prickling and crackling and he slathered the liquid over his arms as fast as he could, shifting position as he realised that his jeans were too tight and he was starting to ache, his concentration faltering as memories and pictures and sensation filled his mind and body.

* * *

Sam closed his eyes, dropping to his knees in front of the small wooden box as he felt the first, languid stirrings of the air around him. He unlocked the lid, lifting it back, the cold bite of the wind that rose from within it shocking the images from his mind and stealing the heat from his body, an unimaginable cold, filled with the scent of frozen metal.

Two hundred yards behind and to one side of him, Nate lay on the ground, eyes rolled back in his head. Resolutely keeping his eyes on the box and the incline of the valley in front of him, Sam could nevertheless hear the man's grunts even at that distance.

A zephyr ruffled his hair, soft and warm. He opened his eyes as it strengthened, unconsciously inhaling the scents it carried, the cold of the abyss waiting in the box by his knees forgotten as the rich and complex aromas filled him. The valley was brighter, he thought dazedly, clearer, somehow, every leaf and blade of grass standing out with a razor keenness he couldn't remember encountering before. Looking down at his hand, resting lightly on the lid, every fold and detail was visible, with a clarity that seemed preternatural. _And probably was_, he told himself, dragging a shred of thought back from the morass of sensations flooding through him. _She's here, you have to speak the spell and close the lid_.

Heart booming in his ears. The rasp of his breath through a throat that was suddenly dry. An uncoiling heat that advanced in waves, brightening and dimming with his pulse. Every remembered image, every remembered touch, every remembered reaction coruscated through his nervous system, pounding along the marrow of his bones.

"_Piamo caosgon_," Sam ground out, the Enochian words caught in the mire of his thoughts. "_Allar gigipah. Drix saanir … sibsi qaal caosg … haala zacam iadnah_."

His vision was dimming, a red film over his eyes. He wiped at them and looked down at the blood that coated his knuckles, feeling a trickle from his nose as it ran down over his lip at the same time.

The wind funnelled down the valley toward him, bending the short grass before it, and Sam felt his heart accelerate unbearably, throbbing in his wrists and the insides of his elbows, at the hollow of his throat, the quickening beat sledging into his ribs. His eyes widened as the air in front of him thickened.

She walked toward him, pale and translucent at first, glowing like a spectre against the dark grey mountain sides, long white hair lifting and swirling around her face. Milk-white skin and pale eyes that were fixed on his. Full, high breasts and curving waist and rounded hips. His breath was caught somewhere in his chest and he was unable to move as she approached him, his heart thundering now, pain filling his side almost unnoticed in the insistent throbbing heat, blood racing along his veins and arteries and spilling down his face.

"_Piamo caosgon allar gigipah_," Sam murmured, no idea if the words had been said aloud or were just an incoherent fragment of thought. "_Drix … saanir sibsi qaal … caosg haala zacam … iadnah_."

So close and he could see the porcelain flawlessness of her skin, the flecks of gold against the silver-grey irises, the lush full lips, tinted rose and her breath over his face, scented of meadows and flowers and deep, dark earth.

Pain ripped through his side, shooting from his chest and down his arm, his heart fibrillating and the blood vessels swollen and leaking. She leaned closer and he felt the muscle in his chest stop, the cessation of the beat shaking through him as he lifted his head to her, eyes on her lips.

She was gone, and Sam's hands released the lid of the box as he fell forward.

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

Adam lay in the warm room, eyes closed as he listened to the sounds that had become familiar over the past three weeks. Not at all like a hospital, though his memories of hospitals were few and far between. He remembered the bowls of ice-cream when his tonsils came out, and that was about it.

The rooms Kim had – had had, he amended to himself, with a soft sigh – the rooms that Merrin and Bob used for patient recovery had been built around the chimneys from the lower floors, radiating a dry warmth without needing open fires in them. He knew Jerome and Felix were in the room next to his. Rudy was in the bed on the other side of his room, also gut-shot and likely to be here for a few more months, as he was.

This time, no one had blamed him for what had happened when the cambion and nephilim had attacked the order, but he felt the failure for himself. Chuck had just disappeared out of the circle of fire, and nothing he'd been able to do had stopped it. He hadn't even been able to protect the scholars, or his own men.

The room smelled of fresh linen and dried herbs, the strong scents rising on the constant circulation of warm air. Stronger still, the paste that coated his abdomen from ribcage to pelvis, wrapped in thin layers of open-weave gauze, followed him into his dreams with its woodland scent, vaguely reminiscent of mushrooms and moss. Merrin had told him that it had numbing properties and he hadn't had much pain, after the bullet had been extracted.

"Adam?"

He opened his eyes, seeing Chris hovering near his bed. "Hey."

"Hey," she said, her voice filled with relief. "How're you doing?"

He looked up at her and made a small, vague gesture with one hand. "Not bad, all things considered."

She wore a simple shift dress over close-fitting pants, the swell of her stomach pronounced beneath it. He glanced at the bulge and up to her face.

"You're going to have a family?"

"Like everyone else," Chris said dryly, pulling the chair from beside the bed and sitting down. "Twins, due in July."

"Are you going to keep hunting?"

"I don't know," she said, looking down at her hands, clasped on her lap. "I'll have to wait and see how I feel about it. Merrin's organising adoptions – there are a lot of girls who're really too young to be starting families, and a surprising number of women who lost their children, or want them but couldn't have them."

Nodding, Adam remembered the conversation he'd overhead between the nurse and Dr Sui a few months ago. A lot of the slaves that had been rescued from the devil's cities had been tortured to a greater or lesser extent. More women than men. At the time, Merrin had been worried about how the population would get to viable numbers. He shrugged inwardly.

"Are you going to be a father in July?" Chris watched the expressions flitting across his face as he looked back at her.

"Yeah," he admitted reluctantly. Another thing that had been a total failure on his part. He hadn't seen Lily since that night. "Not sure how involved I'm going to be, though."

They turned as Frances came through the door, stopping as she saw Christine sitting by the bed.

"Hey," Adam said, pushing himself a little higher on the pillow behind him. He'd gotten to know the researcher at the order's safehold. "Any news?"

Coming into the room, Frances nodded, her gaze flicking to Christine and back to him. "Jerome's awake. Bob said he was going to make it."

Adam smiled in relief. "That's great."

"I'll, I should get going, I just wanted to see how you were," Chris said, getting to her feet. She had the unmistakable sense that the two had things to talk about that they wouldn't if she were there. She'd met the slim blonde girl when they'd moved to Kansas, all of the trainees had spent their first few weeks learning the basics of the wards and guards for most of the things they would be learning to hunt there. At the time, it'd seemed strange to her that Frances, Taylor and the older researchers had kept themselves separate from the hunters. Now, she understood.

"Thanks for coming to see me, Chris," Adam said uncomfortably. He liked Chris. Like her straightforward approach to everything. But she'd been there when he'd frozen up and he couldn't find a way to get past the feeling that the hunters still held it against him, even if only in small ways now. A lack of trust in him? He wasn't sure.

"Does Bobby know about Jerome?" Chris asked Frances as she paused by the door.

"Yes," Frances said. "They're with him now."

She turned back to Adam as Christine left and sat down in the vacated chair. "How's the pain today?"

"Better," he told her, lifting a hand carefully to his ribs.

* * *

_**Sweetwater, Texas**_

"Holy cow," Jack's voice breathed his ear and Dean frowned, adjusting the mike on the headset.

"Cut the chatter," he said in a low growl.

Rufus lifted a brow at his tone. They were hidden on the slight rise on the other side of the lake, the Qaddiysh and trainees about four hundred to the north on the same ridge as it descended to the head of the body of water.

In the mauve-tinted dusk, the camp was more than obvious, small fires scattered through the growing darkness on the bare ground between the few remaining brick buildings and the smooth water. Adjusting the field on the binoculars he held, Dean scanned the camp, jaw tightening.

"Razor wire around the prisoners."

Rufus nodded fractionally. "I got over a hundred on the outside. How do you want to do it?"

Staring down, Dean thought about that. He hadn't been able to pick out anyone that looked like the leader, and no matter what else they did, they'd need a diversion to get the people inside the wire out.

He had the medallion, tucked into one pocket. He carried it all the time now.

"I'll go in, get on top of that building," he decided abruptly, the glasses swivelling to the three-story, square brick building. "Start picking off the skinwalkers. They'll come looking for me."

"Some of 'em will," Rufus agreed, looking down at the camp. "Not all."

"No," Dean said. "But you give me ten minutes, see who's going where, and Penemue and Zoe set fire to those woods, on the other side of town." He lifted the glasses and Rufus copied him. "That'll draw away some more, and I think they'll shift – you can be sure of your targets. Jack, you'll stay here while Rufus and Perry cut through the wire and get those people out."

The soft assents came over the headsets. Rufus looked at Dean speculatively.

"You'll be a sitting duck up there," he said.

"They won't see me," Dean said, mouth twisting up as he put the binoculars down and dragged the medallion from his jeans pocket, slipping the chain over his head and turning his head to look at the older hunter coldly. "Just get them out, man."

Rufus watched him slither backwards down the side of the ridge, disappearing into the darkness. He didn't trust the blithe confidence or the faith Dean had in the efficacy of the pendant around his neck. But there was nothing he could do about either and he rolled over, picking up the glasses and returning them to the small pack, his voice a soft whisper.

"Alright, we got a plan, let's get going."

* * *

The M40 was the gun he'd learned to shoot long-range with, in Minnesota with Caleb and his father. It was long and heavy and in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing, perfectly deadly up to a thousand yards. Looking at the brick building as he skirted the camp, he knew he was well within that limit.

The grand staircase was gone, built of timber, most likely, Dean thought as he walked through the high-ceilinged main room to the back. The rear stairs had been built of steel and brick and they were still there. Climbing to the roof, he came out into darkness, the faint starlight enough to show him the parapet that ran around the edge. Moonrise was still hours away and it was two weeks from full. He didn't need additional light to see his targets against the fires that dotted the open ground.

The first shots seemed to go unnoticed by the pack, the victims falling and the sound coming after. Then he hit one standing in a group, watching as they stared at the fallen man in their midst, and the baying and howling and yelping filled the night air as they seemed to ripple, dropping to all fours, fur, long and unkempt or short and glossy, gleaming in the firelight. Through the flat two-dimensions of the scope, he saw them turn en masse for the buildings of the town and smiled slightly, finger tightening smoothly on the trigger. Not an automatic, he worked the bolt steadily, picking off the animals that ran toward him, the heavy calibre silver bullets mostly blowing them apart, leaving big holes in their human forms as they transformed back.

He hadn't barricaded the roof door when he'd come through, and he heard it slam open, setting the rifle down unhurriedly and pulling out the .45, hitting the first three to cross the asphalt of the roof in a slow sweep, watching them fall and turn back into people.

Not people, the thought drifted. _Just monsters_.

More came out through the door and Dean shifted his position slightly, catching them on an angle for a clearer shot to the heart, the rounds pumping out efficiently, his fingers in his jacket pocket for the next magazine as he emptied the gun, ejected the spent clip and slammed the new one in, one flowing motion that didn't slow him down at all.

A whoomf went up to one side of the building and from the corner of his eye, he saw the flames leap through the woods, heard the howling and yipping change note on the ground and watched the distant fire reflected in the eyes of the dogs that burst through the door toward him. The auto fired smoothly, the rounds counted off in his head.

He'd just slammed the next magazine in when the man came through, reddish-brown hair brushing the top of the door-frame. Adjusting his aim automatically, Dean fired, watching the bullets punch into the man's bare chest, black holes distinct against the furred expanse of white flesh, none penetrating the heart. His eyes widened slightly as the man kept coming, the silver slugs emerging from the holes and dropping to the ground.

_That'll be him then_, he thought distantly, his left hand cupping around his right as he gripped the gun tightly and aimed for the heart.

The man was in front of him in the fraction of a second it took to change the grip, one meaty, ham-sized fist closing around the barrel, shots fired in quick succession into his abdomen as the hand crushed Dean's fingers against the unyielding metal and ivory. He flicked his head to one side, feeling the graze of massive knuckles along his cheekbone and twisted slightly, weight and hip into the kick to the side of the knee, the skinwalker's fingers loosening enough for him to yank his hand and gun free.

The gun clicked, magazine and chamber empty and Dean tossed it behind him, eyes narrowing as he calculated all the possible means he had to tackle the man, more than a foot taller and twice his weight. The skinwalker's mouth stretched out into a ferocious smile.

It wasn't in his nature to accept defeat, no matter how impossible the situation appeared, and he backed a few steps, circling around, his hands flexing as he tried to assess the damage the man had done, nothing broken, blood flowing back and tingling as he worked them.

The attack was fast, as he'd expected. He had time to shift his weight to his left foot and then back to the right, dropping under the sledgehammer strike, shoulder hitting the ground and leg flashing out, the outside edge of his boot hitting the skinwalker's knee again, this time feeling a slight amount of give under the blow. Then he was rolling fast, the man's knee dropping onto the asphalt where he'd been with a crack he could hear over the snarling pack around him, a confused impression of long canine fangs and bristling hackles as he came up on his feet.

"Fast, little man," the skinwalker said, turning to track him, hands lifted and spread out, fingers curled into talons.

Dean ignored him, watching the chest, twisting aside as the man moved again, long fingers skating over his side, the heel of his hand driving up into the heavy jaw, snap of teeth together, then the creaking snap of his ribs as the monster's elbow found an opening and he threw himself sideways and down, rolling again, breath sucked in through the grinding of the ends of the bones.

The skinwalker was on him when he came to his feet, one arm wrapped tightly around his ribcage and squeezing, feeling the sharp stab as a rib, broken and being bent further, pressed into his lung; the other forcing his head back, exposing his throat, his spine compressing under the inexorable pressure. The man's head crackled and squealed as the bones elongated and flattened at the top, protruding out, cheekbones and nose and jaws stretching out toward him, narrowing, the teeth growing, clearly visible in the open mouth, tongue unrolling, saturated in saliva and panting the rank, stinking breath of a predator over his face. Dean rolled his eyes, ignoring the increasing pain as he fought against the monster's hold, seeing the mouth open wider, feeling the drops of saliva patter against his neck.


	16. Chapter 16 Hell Hound

**Chapter 16 Hell Hound**

* * *

_**Gallatin National Forest, Montana**_

"Still not getting a pulse," Nate snapped, resuming the CPR, his weight over Sam's chest held carefully. Joseph nodded, drawing another syringe of epinephrine and looking at Billy.

"Charge three hundred and sixty joules."

"Charging," Billy nodded, watching the charge climb on the machine next to him. "Three hundred and sixty joules."

Nate leaned back as Joseph injected the adrenalin and glanced at the monitor, taking the paddles from Billy.

"Clear."

Sam jerked up as the charge passed from one side of his chest to the other, his hair flopping back as he hit the ground. The sharp beep from the monitor startled them all, and Joseph stared at the small screen, muscles sagging in relief as the rhythm was established, the heart beating on its own.

"Christ!" Nate rocked back onto his heels, wiping the sweat from his face.

"No argument," Joseph commented, handing the paddles back to Billy and wrapping the three used syringes, tucking them into the trash container in one corner of the kit. "Keep an eye on him while I get this shit packed away. Let me know if he looks like coming to."

Nate nodded, watching the strong pulse beating in the side of Sam's neck, his chest rising and falling steadily. He'd be dry as the desert when he woke, but they had water. Two hundred yards from the box and only within the leading edge of the goddess' field but every muscle and nerve felt beaten and cauterised, he couldn't imagine how Sam had stayed conscious long enough to shut the lid.

"Lee? You got a response from Shamsiel?" he said, touching the throat mike lightly.

"Negative," Lee's voice was indistinct and scratchy, possibly from the rock in between them, Nate thought, not a field interference. "No sign."

"Keep looking," Nate told him, stretching out his legs uncomfortably.

Billy walked stiffly back to them, looking down at Sam. "Good thing we didn't have to tell his brother that he'd kicked it here," he said.

Nate looked up at him and nodded. "Get your headset and go help Lee find the Watcher, we'll stay here until we have to move."

Billy turned away, going back to the SUV to grab a headset and jacket. Nate looked back down at Sam.

It was a damned good thing they didn't have to tell Dean that his brother was dead. It was going to be bad enough telling him about the rest.

"The arrest – his heart might be damaged," Joseph said quietly, dropping cross-legged on the other side of Sam's prone body.

"Yeah, I know," Nate said. "Think it'll get worse?"

"I don't know," Joseph said honestly. "Doc Hadley'll give us a better idea when we get him home."

* * *

Lee climbed the rock face, his eyes on the ground, noting the wide tracks in the thin soil on the top of the cliff's edge automatically. He looked around cautiously as Billy climbed up behind him.

"Bear around here somewhere," he said softly.

"Think it got Shamsiel?" Billy looked around, lifting his head slightly and smelling the cool air on the height of the ridge.

"Don't know, no blood here," Lee said, moving north along the edge of the cliff. He saw the broken branches where the bear had broken through, saw the tracks leading further up the ridge.

"Hey, found him," Billy said from behind him, and he turned to see the stocky, blond man leaning out over the edge. Moving up beside him, Lee looked down.

Twenty three feet below them, Shamsiel lay on his back, the left leg of the tough hide pants he favoured cut away and a couple of thin branches, almost straight, bound together around his lower leg with the cut up leather strips. White teeth flashed against dark skin.

"What took you so long?"

Billy sighed, shaking his head. "Can you get down there?" he asked Lee.

"Yeah, pretty sure."

"I'll get the others, we'll have to hoist him up here and then carry him down."

Lee nodded and looked along the edge for a handhold.

* * *

_**Sweetwater, Texas**_

The thick arm squeezed harder around him and Dean felt his air disappearing, consciousness coming back with a slap as he felt a long, warm tongue slide softly up the side of his neck, the cooler drag of the teeth against his windpipe. Goddamn thing was going to bite him and that would be it, he thought incoherently, and why the fuck hadn't the medallion hidden him from the monster?

He forced his hand up, fingers stiffened, jabbing at the dog head's eyes and sucked in a breath as the skinwalker jerked back, the vice-grip around his ribs loosening slightly. The rattle of automatic fire distracted it further, and he felt his feet touch the ground again, the compression on his vertebrae easing off, giving him a second's relief from the pain.

The hot breath filled his mouth and nose and shifted to heat the skin of his throat and Dean heard the cannon boom of Rufus' revolver, felt a white heat plough into his side as the skinwalker dropped to the ground, dragging him down with it. The back of his head hit the asphalt and he screwed his eyes shut tightly, trying to hang onto the pinpoint of light through the growing darkness enveloping him, a hand gripping his arm and yanking him out from under the monster.

"Dean!" Rufus shouted at him, and he wanted to punch the sonofabitch, his side was on fire and his head was pounding.

"Dean," Rufus said again, his arm sliding under his shoulders, lifting him up.

Opening his eyes cautiously, he looked up at the hunter's worried face. "What the fuck happened to the hollow points, Rufus?" he asked sourly, coughing a little.

"Huh," Rufus said, sitting back on his heels, staring at him. "You're bitching? Now?"

"You shot me!"

Rufus' brows rose slightly. "Did not. Where?"

"Here!" Dean rolled onto his elbow, wincing as the movement dragged at the hole he could feel leaking his blood down through his clothes.

"In and out," Rufus said dismissively, after a moment's look under the man's jacket and shirt. "You'll live."

"That's the second fucking in and out on that side I've had in the last two years," Dean said disgustedly, letting the older man pull him to his feet. "I'm gonna look like Swiss cheese."

He looked around at the twenty or so dead bodies lying over the roof top. Most of them he'd accounted for before the leader had shown up, the rest were Rufus' work, stitched across with holes from the modified sub he carried everywhere.

"What happened?" Rufus looked down at the first-born skinwalker, the head still that of a dog – a coyote, he thought, frowning at it.

"Turned up and wanted to fight," Dean told him shortly, hobbling up to him, his hand pressed hard over his side. "The medallion had no effect on him and he had a few advantages."

Rufus blinked at the understatement. "Yeah, yeah, I can see that."

"Did you get the prisoners out?"

"Yeah, they had over ninety," Rufus said, turning back to look at him. "We've tested them all but we've gotta find some transport."

Dean nodded wearily. "Good, you go do that and get someone to take care of this."

"Got some whiskey in the truck –"

"Someone not you."

* * *

_**US-183 N, Texas**_

Rufus glanced in the backseat as he heard the groan again. "Zoe, how's he doing?"

"He's getting hotter," she said, the back of her hand resting over Dean's forehead. "Rufus, we need to stop, look at that wound."

"I agree," Penemue said from the passenger seat. "There must be infection."

_And it had come on fast_, Rufus thought uneasily. He pulled over on the shoulder of the pitted highway, watching Jack pull in behind him, both cars drawing under the shade of the trees that filled what had once been farmland.

"Alright, Penemue, need you in the back," Rufus said, getting out of the car and heading for the trunk. "Zoe, there used to be a creek, not more'n five hundred feet up the road, heading south-east. Get some clean water, as much as you can carry. Tell Perry to give you a hand with it."

"What do you want me to do?" The _Irin_ got out, opening the rear passenger door and looking down at the man lying along the back seat, noting uneasily that Dean's hair and skin was dripping with sweat.

"Gimme a minute," Rufus said from behind the raised lid of the trunk. "Tell Jack we need a cleared space, a fire, groundsheet and tents down. We're gonna have to stay here until this is cleared up."

Penemue nodded and walked to the pickup parked behind them.

Pulling out the medical kit, Rufus balanced the big box on the rim of the trunk well and opened it. The order's unguents were all there, which would help a lot, he thought. He'd need the Qaddiysh and Jack to get Dean out of the car once they were set up. Closing and carrying the box over to them, he put it down and walked back to the car, leaning into the back as Dean muttered something at him.

"Not home, yet, son," he said in a low voice. Dean's eyes were moving rapidly behind his closed lids. Fever dream. Or hallucination. Rufus shook his head slightly. He could feel the heat coming off the man's skin from a foot away. The creek water would be colder than anything they carried; they could get the heat in his body down that way if nothing else worked.

He drew aside the jacket and shirt Dean wore, grimacing as he saw the weeping, pinkish stains on the t-shirt beneath them. Lifting it carefully, he already knew what he was going to see, the angry red lines radiating out from under the bandage and the bandage itself soaked through.

_Crap and more crap_, he thought furiously. Perry and Zoe had done the clean out of the wound, but they'd left something in there to have sparked this all so fast. Lifting an eyelid with his thumb, he saw the enlarged pupil. At least Dean was out for the moment, he realised, letting it drop. He'd give him something as soon as they got him into the camp.

"Rufus –"

He looked down in surprise, seeing the man's eyes open a little, trying to focus on him.

"Dean, you got an infection," he said quietly, catching Dean's hand as he tried to touch the wound in his side. "Gonna have to open it up again, clean it out properly."

"S'its hot," Dean slurred, his head turning from side to side. "Wh' the fuck are we?"

"'Bout a hundred miles north of Clinton," Rufus told him. "Heading home."

"You tell 'Lex I got hit?"

The words hit him low down in his stomach and he swallowed against the dryness of his mouth. "Sure, sure did, Dean."

"Don' worr' her."

"No, I won't." He looked out of the car, seeing Jack and Penemue laying out the groundsheet, a small fire sending curling ribbons of smoke into the air. "Listen, you need to rest, alright? Gotta get this cleaned out and you need to sleep."

"'Kay," Dean said, his eyes opening a little wider, rolling back.

"You ready?" Rufus called softly to the two men. Penemue nodded, walking fast to the car, Jack following him.

It took them five minutes to get the blanket under Dean and lift him out, carrying him over to the clean groundsheet and setting him down near the tent. Zoe and Perry returned, two of the big canvas water carriers filled. Rufus set Zoe to boiling them as he knelt beside the unconsciousness man and pulled off the sweat-sodden jacket and plaid shirt.

The medical kit held a half dozen scalpels, sterilised in their packs and Rufus laid two out on the lid, along with packs of gauze, packed syringes and needles, an ampoule of broad-spectrum antibiotic and a thick, wide elastic bandage. He glanced up at Jack and Perry, both hovering behind Penemue and looking down at Dean.

"Alright, you two, you'll have to miss out on this particular medical lesson," he said brusquely. "We'll stay here tonight, so go find some dinner and get it ready."

They nodded reluctantly, turning to get their rifles from the pickup and heading into the woods. Rufus looked at Zoe.

"In the kit there're sachets of goldenrod and purple cone," he said slowly. When she nodded in recognition, he gestured to the pot that was boiling over the fire. "Get another pot and soak them in boiling water, they have to be soft enough to smear."

On the other side of Dean, the Watcher lifted a brow questioningly. "This shirt is soaked, you want it off?"

"Cut it off," Rufus said, nodding. "I'll get a clean one once we're done here."

When he lifted the bandage, the smell hit them both, the hole in Dean's side thick with stinking yellow pus, red streaks spreading out under the skin of his abdomen from the infected flesh. Dean moaned softly, trying to push Rufus' hand aside, and Penemue caught it, pinning it down beside him.

Wiping away the stinking matter, Rufus felt his concentration narrow down to the hole and finding whatever was in it. As he waited for the boiled water to cool sufficiently to use, he loaded a syringe with morphine and injected it, the sharp contractions of muscle relaxing as the painkiller worked through Dean's body. Penemue checked his pupils, nodding when they didn't react to the light.

It was a matter of washing and wiping and palpating the pus out of the wound, and the two men worked together, not speaking, knowing what was required, their fingers and palms reddened and blistered from handling water and soaked dressings as hot as they could stand to clean out the infection.

When Dean's blood ran clear from the hole, Rufus nodded at Penemue. The Watcher lifted the man slightly, holding his back off the soaked matting underneath.

"Zoe, grab this crap, build up the fire a bit more and burn it all," Rufus said tersely. "And get me some clean sheets from the kit."

He poured the saline through first, holding a clean dressing underneath, looking for debris to float out of the wound. There were a few bits, there'd been more with the pus when he'd forced it out, but anything left in there would only cause the same reaction again. The salt solution was pink as it ran out through the torn flesh on Dean's back, but clearer, no signs of the infected yellow matter or the clots of blackened blood that had come out at first.

"I think it's clean," he said, closing the bottle and picking up the other one. "Hold him hard, Penemue, out or not, he'll feel this."

The alcohol trickled into the wound and Dean arched up against the agonising bite, the fallen angel holding him tightly as Rufus kept pouring it through.

"Okay, that came out clear," the hunter said, screwing the top back on and wiping his face. "You got that stuff good and soft, Zoe?"

"Yeah," she told him, bringing the slightly cooled cotton bags with their pulpy contents. Rufus set a clean sheet under Dean and spread the hot poultice against the exit wound. He set the other poultice against the entrance hole and nodded to the angel to lift Dean higher, wrapping the wide bandage around his torso to hold both in place.

"Get another lot into the water. I'll change this in two hours," Rufus told her, tying off the bandage. He looked up at Penemue with a humourless grin. "Now all we have to do is get him into a sleeping bag."

* * *

"I can watch him for a while," Zoe said softly, ducking as she came into the small tent. "You need to rest, Rufus."

"Yeah, not going to argue that one," Rufus said, rubbing a hand over his face. "Fever hasn't broken yet," he told her, crabbing sideways out from beside Dean. "Keep him as cool as you can."

He gestured to the bottles of water lined up to one side of the tent and the small, wet towel that had been wrung out and draped over them.

"I'll just grab an hour," he said, looking back at Dean's face. For the moment, he was quiet, but he'd been thrashing around earlier, fever dreams that'd had him shouting in fury at someone, then weeping and shaking. He wouldn't want anyone to see him like that, Rufus knew.

"I'll be fine, take as long as you need," she said, moving awkwardly around Dean's legs to sit next to him.

"Get Jack or Penemue if he starts moving again," Rufus told her. "Don't need you getting knocked out."

She nodded and he backed out of the tent, watching her for a moment before he zipped up the door. She wasn't that big and there wasn't a lot of room to get out the way if Dean did start swinging again. He'd zipped the sleeping up as high as it would go, but it wasn't that much of a restraint. He walked to the fire, seeing the _Irin's_ eyes open in the firelight.

"Zoe's watching him," Rufus said quietly. "Keep an ear open in case."

The fallen angel nodded.

Inside the tent, Zoe settled herself beside Dean, lifting his head onto her lap, and smoothing back his hair as he muttered something softly, a frown drawing the dark brows together.

"It's okay, Dean," she said softly, reaching for the towel and tipping water over it as he shifted in the bag, his head turning to the side. "You're going to be fine."

His skin was heating again, she could feel the moisture in his hair, at the back of his neck and she pressed the cold towel down over his forehead.

"Alex?"

"It's alright," she said, her voice dropping a little as she moved the moist cloth over his face. "It's going to be alright."

He seemed to relax, brow smoothing out as she stroked it.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Jerome looked around the library, all the signs of the attack gone now, the warm, golden light filling the room and lighting the polished wooden tables just as he remembered. Sam wasn't there, nor Marla. The hunter had returned two days ago and gone straight to West Keep, under the care of Bob Hadley and Merrin, and Marla was spending most of her time with him, sharing the information the doctor had deemed it safe for him to exert his energy on, but, the legacy thought, needing also to be there, to help his with his recovery. The two had grown close, trying to decipher the prophet's transcriptions.

Jasper sat next to Katherine, and Felix was back as well, looking more frail, his faded blue eyes filled with determination. Oliver and Frances sat opposite them, and Bobby and Ellen had taken the chairs closest to his end of the table, with Baraquiel and Shamsiel seated on the other side.

"You're saying that the Grigori have the mirror with them?" he asked, looking at Jasper.

"Francesca has proof that the Grigori were in Russia when the palace was ransacked. And they would've known the power of that mirror," Jasper said, nodding. "If they have it with them, it would explain how they're controlling the cambion."

"Would the mirror even work with the young one? The boy? His power is enormous."

"He is young," Katherine reasoned. "Perhaps the threat is to the man and the boy behaves because he has an emotional bond with him?"

"Perhaps. Maybe. If," Jerome said, gesturing abruptly. "If it's true, it's still no help. We do not have their location, nor the location of the demon or the tablet."

_Or Chuck_, he added silently to himself. He'd come to be very fond of the writer over the last two and a half years. And he could imagine all too easily what Chuck was going through now.

"We wanted to run the spell again," Bobby said, looking at him. "See if anything's changed."

"What makes you think it has?" Jerome asked him, glancing at Ellen. She shrugged.

"Nothin' … that we know of," Bobby said truculently. "But it won't hurt, will it?"

He sighed and shook his head. "No. It won't hurt."

"One goddess has been recaptured and locked away," Baraquiel said, looking from Jerome to Bobby. "The other is moving west and north and Michel and Francesca have given the location for the first vampire as being in the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. We need to get a team there to intercept Nintu, before she frees Usiku."

"Dean'll be back in a day," Ellen said firmly. "He'll want to organise that, along with what needs to be done about the Grigori base, if they can find it."

"We don't have much time," Baraquiel argued quietly. "And Rufus said on the radio that Dean had been shot."

"Doesn't change a thing," Bobby backed Ellen up, looking at the Qaddiysh with a set jaw. "He'll still be making that decision."

He watched Baraquiel and Shamsiel exchange a fast look, sighing slightly. There was no one else who could make those kinds of decisions here. At least, not risking screwing up whatever Dean might've had in mind to handle it.

At the back of his mind, Rufus' disquieting disclosures about what Dean'd said while under the influence of the fever lingered. He'd seen him under pressure, knew what that looked like. But the fact was that Dean hadn't really been around much since he'd gotten back from Iowa, and had been distant with both him and Ellen, focussing his attention on the keep, on rebuilding and finding the information to shut down Hell, to get Chuck and the tablet back, on finding the Grigori.

When Sam had died, in Cold Oak, Dean had been the same, he thought now. Driven. Desperate. So lost to everything that he'd made the deal without thinking it through. He'd done the same thing when Alex had been dying in Chitaqua, he realised slowly. Made the deal with Death as if the entity could'nt've taken them both right there and then. Was that what he was doing now, he wondered? Looking for another impossible way to get her back? Was that why he wasn't letting go? Rufus had told them about the apartment, not a thing changed or packed up or moved.

"Oliver," Jerome said, breaking through Bobby's unsettled thoughts. "Get the spell set up in the situation room and could you tell Father Emilio what we're doing?"

"You want to do it now?" Jasper asked, glancing at his watch.

"Yes," Jerome said, looking at Bobby. "Might as well see if anything has changed."

* * *

"You talked to Dr Hadley," Sam insisted, moving slowly down the staircase, keeping up easily with his brother who was listing to one side with every downward step.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean –" Dean said, trying to gather his arguments.

"It means that there's no permanent damage done," Sam interrupted impatiently. "It's nothing like you had."

"Doesn't mean you're ready to go out there, Sam," Dean said, slowing at the curve in the staircase, the pull and bite of the hole in his side more pronounced with his weight on one foot. "We don't even know if she's still heading in the same direction."

"Michel confirmed it yesterday, Dean," Sam bit out, ignoring the staccato beat against his chest as he gripped the balustrade. "We don't have much time; one of us needs to get out there."

"Not you."

"You're not interested!"

"Right about that," Dean admitted readily. "Bobby said that the spell showed nine markers now," he added, sucking in a breath as he reached the bottom of the stairs and waited for Sam. "And that Boston isn't flickering around anymore."

"But they can't find it on the large scale map," Sam said, walking slowly after his brother as they crossed the situation room. "Which means it's shielded somehow."

"If I can't get to Chuck, I'll go after the hell hound," Dean said, shrugging carelessly as he eased his way up the steps to the library.

"Through the gate no one's located?"

"There are other ways into the borderlands."

"You're not going alone," Sam told him softly. Dean looked back at him, a lop-sided smile not reaching his eyes.

"I already had this conversation with Rufus, Sam."

"You'll have it again, not just with me."

"No. I won't."

Turning away, he walked to the end of the table, sitting down with a silent sigh of relief. The infection had gone, well and truly, by the time they'd crossed from Oklahoma into Kansas, but he felt weak, exhaustion just a few steps away at any time. The doctor had said it would pass, provided he got some rest now. He'd agreed blandly and ignored the advice, seeing Liev first, then Elias and Nate, then going over to check on Jackson and the rebuilding at the farms. It was taking its toll, he acknowledged unwillingly to himself. He was looking forward to getting through this meeting, back to the keep and into a bed.

"We ran the location spell again," Bobby said to him without preamble. "Showed nine markers this time."

"Not another tablet?" Dean asked, glancing at Jerome.

"No, we don't think so," the legacy answered. "Something else with Metatron's signature but we're not sure why it didn't appear on the previous attempts."

"Where is it?"

"In southern Colorado," Ellen said, leaning on the table. "There was an earth tremor in the area a few days before, it might've changed something in the geological structure holding whatever this thing is."

"What about Boston?" Dean asked Jerome, pushing aside the thought of another mystery for the moment. There'd be time to deal with the scribe's other works after Hell was closed.

"The signal is steady but only on the city itself," Jerome said, rubbing a finger over his brow. "When we moved to the larger scale map, it disappeared."

"Local shielding, Sam said."

"Possibly," Jerome admitted. "Most likely a spell the demon uses to deflect attention from whatever he has set up on this plane."

"Nintu is heading for Utah, and we have a location for the first vampire," Baraquiel cut in. "There is a very small time window for us to intercept her at that location."

Dean looked back at him, considering the angel's ill-concealed impatience. He was right, of course. His dreams had been filled with the dark goddess since Iowa, with the increasingly ominous threat she represented to everything they'd built.

"Peter and Elias can take point," he said, glancing up the table at the two hunters. They nodded, expecting the orders. "Penemue, Joseph, Vince and Lee go along."

It was a major pain that the women were all out of action now, he thought, doubling up the men's workload. Nothing anyone could do about it. He'd revised the worklists as much as possible.

Somewhere deep, feeling eddied and he ignored it, refocussing on the discussion.

"That acceptable?" he asked, looking at the Qaddiysh.

"Very," Baraquiel said, leaning back and looking at the hunters. "When can you leave?"

"We'll get our gear loaded and go tonight," Peter told him. "What about Michigan? Any word from Boze or Jo?"

Dean looked around at Bobby as the old man grunted.

"Confirmed pack of twenty five," Bobby said acerbically, frustrated by the number of problems and the distances between them. "They can't get into the camps, but they're attacking in daylight and the fields aren't getting planted."

"What do they need from us?"

"Boze asked if Franklin could take a bunch of his boys up, go on the offensive."

"We don't need them here, not at the moment," Dean said, considering the request. "Yeah, send them over, tell Franklin to leave a couple of his people there when they're done, train up the people in Tawas."

Ellen nodded, making a note on the pad she had in front of her. "We need another team to get down south, look at the fields and gins for cotton."

He felt a small lurch in his stomach as he nodded, driving the memory back and down. "How thin will that leave us here?"

She looked at him. "Depends on how many and who you send."

"Drew and Riley," Dean said, thinking through who was left here. "And Kelly and those people he's trained from the bunch Elias brought in." He rubbed a hand over his face. "That leaves you, Rufus and Bobby to look after things here."

"Really?" Ellen arched a brow at him. "And you'll be –?"

Dean straightened up in the chair, ignoring her and looking at Jasper and Katherine. "You said there were other ways to get to the borderlands of Hell. I need to know what they are."

"Dean –" Bobby started to say, eyes narrowing beneath the brim of his cap.

"No," Dean snapped suddenly. "We can't keep hoping there's gonna be something more in the transcripts of the tablet." He looked around the scholars sitting at the table. "You've been through all of what Chuck wrote, haven't you?"

The men and women shifted their gazes, to the table, to the shelving against the walls as they nodded assent.

"If there's a good way to get in to get the trial started, it's on a part of the stone that Chuck didn't get to before he was taken," Dean continued, his voice deepening slightly. "But we have no way of finding Crowley or Chuck or the tablet. We do know what has to be done to begin the trials," he said, turning to look at Bobby and Ellen, knowing their arguments, the counters ready in his mind. "And we have to get started on this, before it's too late. We've got something that'll kill the dog –"

"Might kill the dog," Bobby interjected angrily.

"Will kill Cerberus," Shamsiel spoke up, looking from the old man to the keep's leader. "The sword will kill anything hell spawned, except for the arch demons."

"And we know what has to be done," Dean said, as if the pair hadn't spoken, looking around the table again. "So, what I need to know is how to get there."

Sam stared around the table in the silence that followed. No matter that Dean was probably right, he couldn't believe that no one was going to argue with his brother.

"Not alone, Dean," he said into the quiet. "I'm coming with."

"Fine," Dean said dismissively, lifting a shoulder in a half-shrug at him. He looked at Felix. "You said that the guides could take us to the other planes."

The old man glanced uneasily at Jerome. "Yes, but the price might be –"

"I don't care what the price is," the hunter bit out caustically. "How do we summon one of these things?"

"Ah … well, I have a ritual for one of the Crows," Felix hedged. "But they're territorial, you see, and you'd have to go –"

"Just get me the ritual and where we have to do it, as soon as possible," Dean cut him off, impatience riddling his voice. "The only other priority here is the Grigori – finding either of the locations in this country – and finding Chuck."

"Have you heard from Castiel?" Father Emilio asked quietly, from his position near the hearth.

Dean's expression darkened. "No."

"He had a summoning spell, for another angel," Oliver said tentatively. "He summoned an angel called Balthazar here when we needed the holy oil –"

"We're not looking for help from Heaven," Dean said and the warning was explicit in the harshness of his voice, in the flatness of his expression. "Every time they're involved, they screw it up worse. Just get the information about the guide."

* * *

Bobby waited in the shadows beside the door, straightening up as Dean came out, alone, as he'd hoped.

"Dean."

Turning to look at him, Dean let out a gusty exhale, forcibly tempering the irritation he could feel bubbling up.

"How's the side?" Bobby asked, walking over to him.

"It's fine," he said, looking at his watch.

"Didn't look so fine, watching you hobble up the stairs."

"It'll be fine," he amended. "Happy?"

"No," Bobby growled. "I'm not fucking happy. You're throwing yourself at this like it's the only thing you go left to do, not even thinking about doing it the smart way – that's not like –"

"Bobby," Dean cut through, holding up a hand. "If I shut down Hell, half the problems are solved, right?"

"'_Test unto death'_, the transcript says, Dean," Bobby said, dragging in a breath. "That's not ambiguous."

Dean looked away, shrugging. "So, someone else'll have to shut up Heaven. We've got plenty of good –"

"Dean, she's dead, you can't bring her back," Bobby interrupted, his voice low and earnest. "An' throwing yourself –"

"I know she's dead," Dean said vehemently, his expression flattening out to a cold stare. "I fucking well know that." He dropped his gaze for a moment, staring at the ground, the walls of his mind bending under the pressure of keeping it all held back, all held in.

"You think this is about trying to find a way to get her back? Or thinking I'm looking for some way to check out? It's not," he grated, looking back at the older man. "I've had it with this weight, Bobby, I'm fucking sick and tired of carrying everything and getting nothing back. I've paid, Bobby. I've paid with every fucking thing I ever wanted. I've paid enough! If I can shut up the gates, and get that squared away, everyone here, everyone left has a chance to get on with it without the odds being stacked against them. That's all I want now."

"Dean –"

"No." Dean shook his head. "There's nothing else to say. You – and Rufus and Ellen – you of all people should know what I'm feeling, what I'm doing."

He turned away and walked up the stairs to the illusion-covered road, finding his way to the Impala.

Bobby stood in front of the order's door, listening to his footfalls die away in the distance, the engine of the black car rumbling to life and the car pulling out. He did know, at least partly, what Dean was feeling. That was what scared him.

* * *

_**I-64 E, Indiana. May, 2013.**_

The headlights showed another gaping crevasse in the concrete road, and Dean slowed, swearing softly under his breath and shifting into reverse, twisting around to look for the exit ramp they'd passed.

"I don't know why we don't just try the secondary roads," Sam said, leaning back in the seat.

Ignoring him, Dean found the ramp and pulled off, following the line of battered hulks that had been swept from the canted road slowly until he could see a clear road heading east.

Sam was getting used to the silences, pressing on anyway, hoping that eventually he'd hit a topic that his brother would talk about.

"We should look around Boston, before we try this," he said as the headlights showed a remarkably clear stretch of two-lane highway. What had once been a two-lane highway and now bore a distinct resemblance to a gravel access road, anyway. "With the gun, killing Cerberus would be a sure thing."

Dean exhaled softly. "Ninety square miles, Sam," he said thinly. "That's why we're not wasting time looking around Boston. Over half a million people used to live there. "

"We could try the spell there," Sam suggested. "Maybe the shielding –"

"Would be less effective the closer we got? Come on."

"You know what we're doing, right?" Sam turned to look at him, profile just visible in the dim lights on the dash. "We're making another deal."

"I know."

"And that's okay with you? After everything that's happened?"

"No." Dean eased off the accelerator, flicking a sideways glance at his brother. "No, it's not. But I got nothing else to go with right now."

"We could go look for the gun –"

"And even if, by some miracle, we found the house, Sam, what do you want to do? Run in there waving our little black swords and demand it back?" Dean snapped at him, his patience gone with the argument. "King demon, two or more of the Grigori, who knows how many nephilim and cambion – we think there're a couple of each but we don't know that – and we're going to launch a frontal assault?"

Subsiding against the passenger window, Sam didn't respond. Frontal assaults had been Dean's specialty … before.

"You want me to drive for awhile?" he asked a moment later.

Dean frowned. "No."

"Just asking, in case your side is hurting, or you want to sleep or anything," Sam clarified the offer placatingly.

"No, I'm good."

"Rufus said you weren't getting much sleep."

There was a long silence, then Dean glanced at him. "You got something to say, Sam? Get it out."

"I'm worried about you," Sam said slowly. "We could've taken another week, waited until you'd healed up a bit more. We go in there and you're not right …"

"I'm fine."

"No. You're not," Sam said abruptly. "You haven't been fine since Iowa and you –"

The car swerved to the shoulder, tyres squealing and sliding on the rough surface of the road as Dean braked and stopped.

"We're gonna get this straight here and now," he said, turning and looking at Sam. "You're here against my better judgement, not because I want you here. I am not fucking interested in personal conversation, not now, not ever. I want to get to New York, call that fucking guide, get into Hell and kill that fucking dog. That's it. That's the extent of what I want to talk about – you got that?"

Sam stared at him, heart still pounding a little at the suddenness of the stop, at the look on his brother's face.

"Yeah, I got it."

"Good," Dean said, turning back to the wheel and starting the engine. "Cause if you say another word about anything else, you're walking home."

He pulled out, foot heavy on the accelerator and reached across to the stereo, jamming his finger on the play button. The music filled the car, loud and heavy and insistent and Sam closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the glass of the window beside him. _Just like old times_.

* * *

_**US-50 W, Colorado**_

The pickup and SUV were parked off the side of the road, half-hidden beneath the rapidly spreading forest. Vince and Lee stood next to them, guns loaded and held. A little deeper under the trees, Penemue crouched beside a small pool, staring into the dark, reflective water, waiting for an image to appear. Elias, Joseph and Peter watched and listened to the woodland.

The Qaddiysh sighed as he failed to pick up any trace of the goddess, turning his thoughts to the mountains in France instead, calling the image of the lit table in the situation room of the Chambre d'Ombres, the chapter of the Litteris Hominae, and Michel, the group's tall, lanky programmer. The image appeared immediately, the water clouding under the surface as it became clearer, the table with its lit markers showing the progress of the dark woman as she traversed the mountains north of them.

"She's not far ahead," Penemue said in a whisper. "But its high, a very high twisting road that has been battered and broken."

Elias rubbed an eyebrow. "You see any signs, Penemue?"

"I see a nine."

"Ninety-two," Elias nodded. "Twists through the mountains east of American Fork, the cave system is on the northern end of the route."

"We'll be too late," Peter said, his shoulders slumping.

"Maybe, maybe not. Cross-country is very difficult through there," the auburn-haired hunter said, turning to look back at Penemue. "Anything else in the magic mirror?"

"No," the Qaddiysh got to his feet, tugging at the light down jacket he wore. He found the westernised clothing too close-fitting and uncomfortable.

"You want to travel after nightfall?" Peter looked at Elias.

"No, not really," Elias said with a sigh. "Country looks empty, but it won't be, and lights are a give-away for miles. But I'm not sure we got a choice."

He looked at the sky. "Tonight's full moon, it'll rise late, after eleven. We'll get some grub, some sleep and take off when it rises, should be able to travel some distance using it."

Peter nodded, waiting for the Qaddiysh to precede him from the clearing, his gaze and gun on the woods as he backed out after him.

Under the moonlight, the landscape was reduced to a flat two-dimensional chiaroscuro; colour bled out leaving only light and shadow, the road climbing between blocks of charcoal and silver. Peter watched the darkness as Vince drove, the dark-blue SUV almost invisible on the black asphalt.

"What's that?" Lee asked from the rear seat, leaning close to the window on the driver's side.

"What?"

"There, Vince, stop," the young man's voice rose slightly. "Lights."

Looking out over the folded hills and deep valleys, they saw them, unflickering against the side of the peak, golden in a world of black and white.

"Settlement?" Peter turned to look at Vince, one brow lifted. "Rufus and Bobby have been speculating of many more survivors there are out there than what we've found?"

"Maybe," Vince answered, glancing back at the pickup stopped behind them. "Whatever it is, we should check it out."

"We might not have time," Peter said.

"We'll have to make time," the younger hunter said, pulling on the handbrake and getting out of the car. "Gimme a minute."

Peter watched him walk back to the truck, calculating and recalculating the distances in his head. There was an extremely good possibility they would miss Nintu anyway, at the rate she travelled. They couldn't afford any more delays.

Vince was back in less than two minutes, the door swinging open. "We'll look on the way back," he told Peter, releasing the brake. "I set the trip counter at the turnoff to get the ninety-two right – we'll use the counter number to find them again." He wrote down the number under the mileage counter and tucked the notebook back in his jacket pocket. "Good eyes, Lee."

"Did Elias think it was survivors?" Peter asked, another possibility occurring to him as they continued up the pitted and cracked road.

"No," Vince said, his voice dropping low as he glanced across at him. "No, he thought it might be something else."

* * *

_**Fort Lee, New Jersey**_

The skyline was gone, Sam realised belatedly as they drove toward the river from the Jersey side. Aside from the lights that had always delineated it, even the shapes, dark against the brilliantly starred night sky were broken and short, nothing over a few stories seemed to be standing now.

As if he'd said it aloud, Dean nodded abruptly, pulling to one side of the road as they came closer. Only the shells of the buildings remained, brick and steel lifting their broken bones into the darkness.

"Streets'll be full of crap," he told Sam, nosing the black car in between the side of a low building and the wreckage of a bus that had mounted the sidewalk, both overgrown with weeds, grass pushing through the cracked concrete and saplings rising from the building's interior. "We'll walk in from here."

"Where do we have to go?"

"Anywhere on Manhattan, Felix said," Dean called back over his shoulder, getting out and locking the door and walking back to the trunk.

"I thought guides could go anywhere?" Sam got out and locked the passenger door, walking around the car.

"Apparently not. The lore says they're territorial." Pulling out the gear bag, Dean passed the flashlight and a shotgun to his brother. "Stay close, I'm wearing the medallion, but I don't know how big the field is."

It'd covered the car while he was driving, he thought, lifting the bag onto his shoulder. The only time he'd tried to use it to protect someone else, he'd been lying on top of her. The memory was dismissed instantly and he closed the trunk.

"Where are we?" Sam looked around the thick woods that lined both side of the road, overwhelming the buildings and piles of rubble and cars.

"Fort Lee, I think," Dean told him, walking east of north and skirting the piles of rusted metal that blocked most of the road. "George Washington Bridge." He gestured vaguely ahead of them. The automatic was in his hand and he watched the blackness under the trees to either side of them, the moonlight bright enough to see the obstacles on what little remained of the road.

"Nature didn't waste any time," Sam commented as he looked around. Another ten years and it wouldn't be a road any longer, just a series of broken and eroded pieces of concrete, meaningless artefacts under the canopy of the forest.

The bridge, a dual level suspension bridge with towers at either end, spanning the Hudson River, seemed mostly intact. Both men stood by the long approach and looked at it, the lower level stygian even with the moonlight.

"Guessing we'll take the top?"

Dean snorted. "You want to see what's living down there, be my guest."

"Nah, I'd like to live."

The approach was an almost solid wall of crushed and twisted vehicles, enmeshed together and uniformly rusted. Setting the bag further over his back, Dean exhaled and looked for a place to get over or through, moving slowly along the obstruction.

"You think this was from when it started?" Sam asked, staring at the cars, trucks and buses that had been mashed together.

"Probably," Dean said disinterestedly, finding a place to climb over the truck and bus frames that seemed to have brought the traffic to a final halt here. "Had a hell of a fender-bender right here and all the people that were trying to get out behind it had nowhere to go."

He looked back down at Sam. "Come on, there's a way through here."

Sam followed him up the side of the bus. There was nothing left but the frames, some of the panels, the doors. Everything that could be consumed had been. He stopped next to Dean, on the top of a semi cab that had somehow jacknifed over the roof of the bus.

Ahead of them was a sea of twisted metal wrecks, three or four cars high in some places, slewed across the lanes and jammed against the metal railings, torn apart or crushed together.

"Crap," Dean said, with feeling.

"They'll all be like this, won't they?" Sam asked him, looking down the river. "The tunnels and the other bridges?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, I think so. Everyone panicked."

"What about a boat?"

"Current's too strong unless we can find one with a motor that's still working and some fuel for it." Dean said, looking across to the side. "Supposed to be foot and bike paths on the sides, we'll try for those."

He shifted across the top of the cab, picking his way down over the long fixed tray and the steeper slope of the trailer, making sure of every foothold as he stared down at the protrusion of sharp steel edges that were all that was left of the cars underneath.

"Watch your footing," he warned his brother, unnecessarily, Sam seeing the same potential for impalement.

Within the first couple of hundred yards from the approach to the tower, both pedestrian and bike paths had been covered by cars attempting to force their past the initial crash, but further along, there were less obstacles, and they were able to move around them. The concrete had split and cracked, steel reinforcement mesh and rebar curving up like daggers from the crumbling holes. The bridge was a little under a mile in length, and Sam saw the line of light against what was left on the island as they crossed finally into Manhattan.

"Anywhere here?" he asked, leaning back against the last steel pylon.

"That's what they said," Dean agreed absently, dropping the gear bag and unzipping it, pulling out the bowl and the packets of herbs and powdered stones. He mixed the contents together in the brass bowl and drew the long black blade, brow rising a little at the fine-edge cut it made on the back of his forearm. Sam watched as the blood dripped into the bowl.

"You'd better bind that up, the ghouls are feverish in the city tonight."

The voice was deep and thick and rich and both men swung around to see a man standing behind them, dark eyes hooded beneath black brows, the glint of white teeth between fleshy lips in an expression that wasn't entirely friendly.

Dean lowered the point of the long knife, sliding it casually back through his belt as he wound a clean dressing over and around the cut and studied the guide. Five foot ten, at most, but stocky, plenty of muscle on the wide shoulders and around the bull neck. Jet-black hair fell thick and straight, brushed back from the forehead and his skin was olive-toned, a heavy shadow over jaw and cheeks and throat.

"You're a Crow?" Sam asked, straightening against the post, one of the Irin's knives in his hand, point held loosely down.

The man laughed. "I'm _the_ Crow, my friends," he said, genuine humour flashing in the dark eyes for a moment then disappearing. "Kopaki, guide of guides."

"We need a gate to the borders of Hell," Dean said shortly. "And a ride back out when we're done."

"Is that all?" Kopaki gestured expansively around them. "What about my head on a plate? My firstborn? My fucking eye teeth?"

"Is there a problem?" Sam asked, stepping toward the guide.

"The Winchesters would like a ride in and out of Hell, and he asks if there's a problem," he said to the sky, rolling his eyes.

"You know us?" Sam took another step closer to the Crow.

"Not personally, of course, but yes, I've heard of you." He looked from Sam to Dean. "The King of Hell is looking for you – quite diligently, I might add."

"Can you do it or not?" Dean asked pointedly, looking down at the bag at his feet. "I got another ritual for a reaper, if you can't."

"Oh, I can do it." The guide looked around. "But it will cost."

"Naturally." Dean's lip curled up. "What's the price?"

"Where do you want to go – exactly?"

"River Acheron."

"There's a gate that will take you there in Texas," Kopaki said, glancing at Sam. "Austin. I'll meet you there."

"No," Dean told him tightly. "Somewhere around here, somewhere close."

The Crow looked at him, his expression darkening. "The only gate close to here is in Boston, my friend. I suggest most vehemently that you pick another."

"Why?" Dean felt Sam's gaze on him, ignoring the tacit warning in it.

"It is not a safe place to cross." The guide glanced around the silent street. "It is the personal gate of the King."

"Crowley's gate's in Boston?" Dean asked, turning to lift a brow at Sam. "That suits us just fine."

"Dean –"

"How much?" Dean cut him off, looking at Kopaki.

"You will grant me a favour, when I have need of you."

From the expression on his face, Dean realised that the seemingly innocuous demand wasn't going to be that easy. "What kind of favour?"

"Any kind I need," Kopaki said, his mouth stretching out in a smile that went nowhere near his eyes. "That's the price."

"Dean!" Sam cut in between them, staring at his brother. "A moment?"

"Of course," the Crow said, moving away. "Take as long as you like."

Glancing over his shoulder, Sam watched him walk to the corner, then turned back to Dean. "A favour? Anything? Are you kidding me?"

"You got an alternative? 'Cause I'm not seeing one here," Dean said tersely, staring back at him. "We need a way in – and if it's Crowley's personal gate, maybe we can find out something about where he's living when he's topside?"

"Maybe we're walking into a trap to be served up to Crowley!"

"Decider?" Dean grinned humourlessly at his brother as he held his fist over his palm.

"Christ, don't –" Sam turned away, shaking his head. "This is not what we should be doing, not now, not after everything you did to get me free, Dean."

He looked back at him, seeing the mulish expression on his face, knowing his brother wasn't going to listen to him.

"We can figure out another way," he tried again.

"No," Dean said, his eyes flat and dark. "There's no other way. Jerome, Jasper … you – you would've found it by now if there was."

"We haven't given them much time –"

"We don't have much time, Sam," Dean said, half-turning as frustration finally broke through. "We won't get more time. Look at what we're dealing with here," he added in a low voice. "Cas, imprisoned and dragged back to Heaven – we don't know what's going on up there, but we can't count on their help. Crowley's got Chuck translating the tablet and the Qaddiysh say that the tablet itself holds some magnitude of power that could probably wipe us all out, even without the others. We didn't kill those sons of bitches, and there are more of them on the way east now the snow's gone. Some angel told Father McConnaughey that Hell had to be shut before Crowley could get any further and before the archdemons got loose … we are _out_ of time. The only thing we got a shot at is closing the gates of Hell. That's it."

Listening to him, Sam felt a sinking recognition that he was right. They never had any goddamned time to get themselves off the back foot and take the offensive away from whatever it was that was trying to kill them, kill everything.

"It doesn't matter that it's a crappy deal – fuck, that's all I do is crappy deals," Dean said, and Sam heard the recognition in Dean's voice as well. "It's the _only_ deal. I gotta take it."

"I'm going in with you," he said, turning around to face his brother. "No arguments."

Dean shook his head. "No argument."

"Go ahead." He looked bleakly at him.

* * *

_**Alpine Scenic Highway, Wasatch Mountains, Utah**_

The concrete paths and tourist signs had long since gone. Peter looked up at the mountainside, the shadowed overhangs and fissures clearly visible in the pale dawn light, and drew the black knife the Qaddiysh had given him. Neither vampire nor goddess was hell-born but the edge was keen and he had no doubt that it would take off the head of anything that came his way.

Lee and Joseph had drawn the short straws and were remaining with the vehicles. He could hear the crunch of the bootsoles of the Qaddiysh, Vince and Elias behind him, the box heavier on his back than it had been half an hour ago, and the mile and a half climb to the caves ahead of them.

Here and there, the remains of the chain that had marked the entrance to the cave system lay rusting on the ground. Winter hadn't quite left the mountains, and the bitter air blew past them, moaning in the stalagmites and stalactites that were visible from the entrance.

"You feel anything?" Elias looked Penemue. The Qaddiysh shook his head.

"No, it feels empty, dead."

"Better make sure of that," Peter said, turning on his flashlight and heading inside. It didn't take that long to investigate the interconnected tunnels and caverns. And the prison of Nintu's first vampire was obvious, the rock wall at the side of the farthest cave smashed into pieces, a pool of dark blood painting the floor beside it.

"She's freed him and given her blood," Penemue said softly, looking down at it. He tipped his head back, his breath rushing out in a long, tired exhale. "We were too late."

Elias looked around the cave. One set of tracks led out through the thin, glittering sand. A man's tracks. Not big, but distinctive. At the end of the toes, long claws left their indentations in the sand.

"Where is she heading next?"

"To free Raat," Peter told him. "Alain calculated the prison to be in the very north of Canada, above the Arctic Circle."

"Gives us some time," Elias mused. "What about the goddess, will she come back this way?"

"They haven't found the prisons of the other first born monsters," Penemue said with a shrug. "She might."

He looked at the hunters. "What does mean for our priorities now?"

Elias glanced at Peter. "We'll take a look at those lights."

"Yes," Peter said, nodding. "Then back to Lebanon."

* * *

_**Nahant, Massachusetts**_

Trees crowded close to the shoulders of the road, hiding the stone and brick residences still standing, their roots reaching out, cracking and lifting the slabs of asphalt and tilting them over. Dean grimaced with every hard, lurching crunch of the wheels as they rose and fell over the obstructions, his breath hissing out with each scrape of the oil pan and exhaust pipe over the jagged edges.

"How much further?"

"Half a mile," Sam said, leaning toward the windshield, eyes narrowed. It'd taken them five hours to drive the two hundred and twenty miles, the first two hours finding a way out of New Jersey, and the last two negotiating the devastation that had once been Boston. He could see the darkened patches on Dean's shirt, the sheen of perspiration still coating his face as he struggled to find a less punishing way through for the car.

"That's it." Sam pointed to the left, where the cracked and fallen pillars of a driveway were just visible through the saplings and undergrowth.

The black car bumped over the remains of the iron gates, Dean swearing softly under his breath as he eased them over, hoping that nothing sharp was going to take his tyres out. He hadn't been able to see the gates lying on the ground when he turned in.

Branches and burgeoning foliage brushed the sides of the car as they moved slowly down the narrow road. Dean followed the barely-there curve and pulled up when the headlights revealed two walls of a half-collapsed brick building, the sharp tang of salt on the light onshore breeze filling the car as the engine ticked in the silence.

They got out, Sam looking around as Dean went for the trunk, this time to retrieve the long, black knives. The medallion was warm against his skin and his thoughts were remote, detached from what they were about to do.

"We need to hurry, darkness and the pendant will protect us from their view for now, but once the sun has risen, even that medallion may not hide us all."

Sam's head snapped around as Kopaki spoke next to him, his heart racing at the unexpectedness of the guide's appearance. Dean glanced at the Crow, gesturing with the knife.

"Your party, lead on," he said coldly, passing one of the black metal blades to Sam and tucking his gun into his jacket pocket. He wasn't sure if it would do anything down there – wherever down there was – but it was a reassuring weight he was loathe to leave behind.

The Crow moved to the cliff edge, and began to pick his way down to the water, the moonlight turning the grey sand beach to charcoal and lighting the white foam on the crests of the small waves that rippled along its edge. Aside from the soft sough of the sea as it touched the shore, the night was silent, the crunch of their boots over the coarse sand loud in their ears.

"What is this place?" Sam asked in a low voice, and Kopaki turned at once, dark eyes narrowed in warning, one finger pressed against his mouth.

At the end of the beach the cliffs jutted out, not very high but rough, worn into sharp-edged twists and hollows by the relentless action of the waves, the softer rock eroded, living the harder pitted cores that caught on their clothes and chewed through their boot soles. They clambered around two small headlands, interleaved with tiny beaches, before the cave appeared, and the Crow stopped.

"The gate is in there," Kopaki said, his voice barely a whisper. "I go no further."

"Bullshit!" Dean whispered back, leaning threateningly close to the guide. "Deal was in and out!"

Catching Dean's hand, and surprising the hunter with the strength of that grip, the Crow traced a symbol on the inside of his wrist. Dean looked down, feeling a burning sensation crawl over his skin as a thin line of greyish light followed the fingertip, flaring momentarily when the drawing was complete then fading away.

"When this glows, you will know it's time to come back," Kopaki leaned close and breathed against his ear. "The gate will open and let you out and I will be here."

He nodded, pulling back uncomfortably from the guide and turning for the cave mouth.

"This is a bad idea," Sam muttered as they crossed out of the moonlight and into the darkness.

Dean didn't disagree. He stopped for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the black interior of the cave, listening to the murmur of the water as it washed in and out of the cave's floor. Ahead, he could see a shimmer, against the rock walls, a faint reddish outline.

"There it is," he told Sam and strode forward.

Following his brother through the shimmer, Sam flinched as his body seemed to erupt in flame, gasping as everything disappeared – light, sound, touch and feeling – his stomach cramping up with the vertiginous wrench that spun him around, arms flailing outward. He hung for time uncounted in that non-space, eyes stretched wide open, lungs aching with the lack of air, his heart sledging against his ribs, then felt the hard ground under his feet, stumbling forward into Dean's back as he blinked in the subdued sunlight.

* * *

_**River Acheron, Border of Hell**_

The river was wide, flowing without a ripple past them. Dean walked across the springy green grass and under the cover of the willows, looking around for a familiar landmark. It looked like the stretch he'd arrived in before, the willows still trailing delicate green fronds in the dark water, the cliffs on the others side rising black and grey and the soil bare and ashy and puffing with yellow-grey smoke, escaping from god-knew-where.

"Where are we?" Sam asked, crouching down beside him under the low-hanging branches. "Is this the Acheron? Or the Styx?"

"Stop talking!" Dean hissed at him, leaning out to look down river. The mists that seemed to shroud the water in both directions a few hundred yards away swirled and parted as the prow of the ferryman's slender vessel pushed through it.

"Is that –?" Sam breathed next to his ear and he nodded.

They watched the boat move upstream against the current, three people sitting in the middle of the curved hull, the tall, wild-haired man whose skin was tinted a faint shade of silver sculling the craft expertly to the bank.

From the noxious fog on the other side, Cerberus emerged, stalking slowly to the bank, and Dean felt Sam tense beside him, his brother's exhale warm on the back of his neck. He looked back over his shoulder, eyes narrowed in warning and Sam swallowed, forcing the comment back down his throat.

When the souls had gone through the door in the cliff, the boat pushed off the bank, heading downstream again. Dean let out his own breath as Charon's gaze remained fixed to the river. The dog had vanished in the fumes rising from the ground upstream and he rocked back on his heels, thinking about the best way to take it.

"Dean, that thing is the size of a car!" Sam whispered to him.

"It can't see me with this," he told him in a low voice, tapping his finger against his chest. "I need to find a place to cross."

He edged out from under the willow branches, looking at the river in both directions. Meg had led them upriver, to find the stones. He'd gone downriver and seen the quay for the damned after only a few hundred yards. He had the feeling that was consistent, up and down the lengths of the river near the gates to their own plane. Upriver was do-it-yourself, downriver was pay the boatman.

"We're going across, together, right?" Sam said, catching up to him as he turned upriver, walking fast.

"No, you stay on this side," Dean said shortly, lengthening his stride as they came to a curving bend. "It'll see you."

"How'm I supposed to back you up –?"

"There they are," Dean cut him off as he caught sight of the stones. From this side of the river, they were large, flat and spaced no more than a yard or so apart. He tried not to think of how they'd look from the other side and getting back over them.

"Just stay here," he said, turning to his brother as he gestured across the river. "If it all goes south, you get across here, but that dog can't see you on this side and once you're in the middle of the river, it'll be able to, so I need a promise that you'll stay put once I've gone across."

Sam looked at the stepping stones mutinously. That wasn't the deal he'd had in mind. They both had the knives; he'd been thinking more of a decoy/butcher arrangement.

"This is a bad idea," he said, turning to glower at him. "I'll be too far away to help if you need it."

"I won't need it, Sam."

The unshakeable confidence, the implacable tone, infuriated Sam more. He knew that if he didn't promise, Dean would just turn around and walk back to the gate, willing to put it off until he could get rid of him. He could feel his brother's impatience, radiating from his motionless frame. Reluctantly, unwillingly, he nodded.

"Alright, I won't come over unless you're in trouble."

Dean felt a thread of relief trickle along his nerves. It was bad enough going to toe to toe with the huge goddamned dog, knowing that the mutt wouldn't be able to see him. Having to watch out for his brother at the same time would've made it impossible. And he wasn't convinced that the heart attack, or whatever it'd been, had left no damage. The doc had said he couldn't find any damage. That wasn't a guarantee.

He drew the knife and turned away, walking down to the edge of the water and jumping lightly to the first stone. It was barely more than a stride to get from one to the next and he landed on the opposite shore, watching the mist shiver and part and close up again warily, moving sideways toward the section of the cliffs where the door had opened.

Glancing around, he was almost at the point on the bank where the boat had drawn up when he heard the rasping breath behind him. Cerberus stood three yards away, midway between bank and cliffs, looking around, the wolf's nose raised slightly as it sampled the air.

Damned thing smelled him, somehow, Dean thought distantly, shifting the grip of the hilt in his hand and crabbing slowly closer. He looked at the three heads, wondering which to take first. The wolf was the decision maker; he'd thought that the last time. The other two were definitely just the grunts. Edging toward the cliff face, he looked up at the thick neck and rough pelt that joined the wolf's head to the chest and shoulders and wondered bleakly if the blade he held would get through that mass of fur and muscle to something vital underneath.

Cerberus froze, all three heads dropping at the same time, eyes fixed on the cliff. Realising it was the only chance he was going to get, Dean sprang forward, ducking underneath the wolf's head, scything the short sword up. The dog moved to one side, as if it had sensed him there and the keen black blade drove into the dhole's neck, severing the windpipe and the thick tendons to either side as Dean dragged it across and down, blood like ichor spouting out over him as the wolf howled and the hyena screamed in pain. The blade caught for a second in between the vertebrae and he threw his weight forward, twisting it free and slicing through the remnants of the skin and sinew and muscle running above the spine, the broad, flat head dropping to the ground. He was turning as he dropped after it, but not quickly enough, a bolt of pain from the hole in his side slowing the movement and his right arm was suddenly paralysed as the wolf's long incisors punched into his shoulder. The wolf head threw him up and the hyena's jaws caught him, and in the tangle of snapshots that he registered, Dean saw the gleam of silver against the yellowing enamel, feeling the bite of the chain digging into his throat a fraction of a second later as the wolf dropped it's head and the hyena raised its snout. He dropped the knife and tried to get his hand in between the chain and his neck. The fucking medallion chain was going to throttle him.

* * *

Sam watched his brother duck under the wolf's jaws and sweep the black knife upward, saw the beast move and the blade bite into the yellowish-red fur of the dhole's neck instead of the wolf's. He was on his feet, by the edge of the water when he watched Dean half-thrown from the wolf to the hyena, saw him drop the blade as his hands flew to his neck, heard the deep growling crunch of the hyena's massive carnassials as they began to cleave the bones of his brother's shoulder.

He was on the first rock before he'd considered what he was doing, long legs making the run across the river easily, the dog oblivious to his approach from behind. Jumping onto its back, Sam drove the long black blade through the back of the hyena's skull, its mouth flying open as the sword severed spinal cord and the primitive nerve centre controlling the jaws. Dean dropped to the ground and Cerberus lurched backwards as Sam hacked through the thick neck and the second head fell.

He barely caught a handful of the thick, tufted ruff running up the back of the wolf's neck when it swung around, spraying him in the ichor that fountained from the torn necks, his wrist creaking as it took the weight of his body as he was catapulted over the shoulder.

The sword blade was up as Cerberus spun around to face him and he stared up into the blood red eyes of the wolf's head, his arms tensing automatically as the dog ran into the point of the sword. The still-keen edge cut through the muscle and fur protecting the side of the neck and Sam ducked as the head snapped at him, feeling the teeth on one side of the mouth tear down his back, then he was under the jaw and dragging the sword across the throat.

* * *

On the ground, Dean lay on his back, his shoulder shrieking in time with his heart, blood pouring from the deeply crushed and torn wounds, throat glass-filled and raw where the chain had cut into his windpipe. His eyes flew open as he heard the wolf's high-pitched howl of pain and rage, looking up to see his brother doused in a geyser of stinking ichor as the last head hung from a thin scrap of skin and then fell, the enormous body toppling to one side and hitting the ground with a shaking crash.

Sam turned to look at him, wiping the thick black ooze from his eyes and face, spitting it out of his mouth. His eyes widened as he saw the growing pool of blood soaking into the grey earth around his brother, and he stumbled across to him, dropping to his knees. Pulling Dean's hand from his throat, his face screwed up when he saw the deep indent in the flesh there. The shoulder was worse, he thought, and panic kicked in for a moment as he watched the blood flow unimpeded down Dean's chest.

"You killed it?" Dean rasped at him, and the question, so fucking irrelevant at this precise moment, so exactly typical of his brother, brought him back to himself.

"You're bleeding out," he said furiously, stripping off his jacket and shirt, turning the jacket inside out to get the lining sleeve free of the black-soaked outer. "Don't move."

Dean leaned back, eyes half-closed as the pain his nervous system was registering in greater and greater detail started to shake through him. Sam had killed the dog, he thought dazedly. Sam had completed the first trial. What the fuck did that mean? He felt his brother's hands, packing a wadded up piece of cloth against the tears in his shoulder, wrapping it around the wounds tightly with the ripped-off sleeve. The pressure made it worse.

"Dean, come on," Sam said, sliding an arm beneath his left shoulder and lifting him up. "We gotta get out of here. I need the medical kit to stop the bleeding."

"You killed Cerberus, man," Dean said, looking at the wolf's head, the red eyes glazed and staring now, the light gone from them. "Fuck it, you killed it."

"We can talk about this when we're out of the borderlands, alright?" Sam asked, grinding his teeth together as he took his brother's weight, Dean's knees giving way once he was upright.

"No," Dean said suddenly, digging his heels in and dragging Sam to a shuddering stop. "No, you killed it. You have to complete the trial, Sam. You have to make the contract."

"I don't –"

"You have to, or this is been wasted," Dean insisted as his fingers searched through the pocket of his jeans for the paper he'd written the ritual on. Every movement sent a new wildfire of agony through his shoulder but he pulled it out, a crumpled ball, spotted with red and black blood, and handed it to Sam.

"Here? Now?" Sam asked, looking around uncomfortably and back at the paper in his hand.

"Yeah," Dean replied, swaying slightly as he felt a wetness trickling down his side. Damned hole had opened up in the fight, he thought distractedly. That was going to make getting across the stones fun.

"Can you stand?"

Dean nodded. He was okay standing. He didn't think he could move.

Smoothing out the ball, Sam looked at the words written in his brother's neat block lettering. They looked Enochian, but he couldn't be sure.

"Where did you get this?"

"Just read it, Sammy," Dean told him tiredly.

"_CNILA SIBSI QADAR IAOD_," Sam said slowly. "_IALPURG IPAMIS PRDZAR CACRG INOAS TELOAH_."

He looked at Dean. "Is that i–"

Every cell, every blood vessel erupted into fire at the same time, and Sam's body contracted helplessly, head thrown back and mouth stretched wide open in a soundless scream as the excruciating pain incinerated him from head to foot.

Dean stared in horror at his brother's expression, his own pain wiped from consciousness as he reached out for Sam. He snatched his hands back as his brother's skin burned them, a turgid heat radiating out from Sam's body like a blast furnace, convincing him that his brother was cooking from the inside out.

It stopped as suddenly as it had begun and Sam collapsed to the ground, his chest rising and falling in ragged rhythm as he sucked down lungsfuls of the bitter, toxic air, his muscles twitching as the nerves overloaded, his body involuntarily drawing in.

_No_, Dean thought, dropping to one knee beside him, cautiously touching Sam's arm. Not burning, the tendons weren't shrivelling and shortening with the heat, it was his brother's mind convincing his body he was burning. He pushed aside the memory of how his fingers had felt, touching the scalding skin a moment earlier.

"Sam," he said insistently, ignoring the steady trickle of blood he could feel running down his side, down his back, the piercing ache and throb of crushed bone and flesh in his shoulder. "Sam, it wasn't real. You're okay, you're not burning. Sam, you hearing me?"

Sam opened his eyes, looking into Dean's face. "Not?"

"No, just a – a – a hallucination, dude, you're okay," Dean prevaricated, looking for reassurances, not sure there were any around to be found. "See?" He touched Sam's face, laying the back of his hand on one reddened cheek. "Not burning."

"Dean –" Sam said, sitting up slowly, feeling the exhaustion and ache through his body from the intense contractions it had gone through. "It feels – I don't know."

"You were right." Dean shook his head. "We have to get out of here. You're fucked up and I'm fucked up and this is no place to be fucked up." He struggled to his feet, holding out his left hand to his brother. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah, I think so," Sam said, accepting the hand and feeling his legs shake and slowly stabilise as he got to his feet. "Not sure I can jump across the stones in the river."

"Well, let's take it one step at a time and see how we do," Dean said, blinking back the edges of grey from his vision. Under the steel control of handling the practical considerations facing them, Dean felt his rage seething, a growing maelstrom of disbelief and fury that this too had been taken from him. He ignored it, as he ignored the pain and the blood and the residual heat he could still feel in his brother, sliding his left arm around Sam's ribs. They hobbled slowly together back along the river bank to the stones.

A sharp burn on his wrist cut through everything else and he looked at it, seeing the sigil of the Crow blazing with a silver light against his skin.

"Whaddya know," he slurred unsteadily, looking at the stones in the river. "Time to go."

* * *

_**Nahant, Massachusetts**_

The fire crackled cheerfully in the hearth, the whiskey was lambent in the glass on the desk, but Crowley was pacing the glowing Persian rugs, a thin thread of unease goading him back and forth across the long room.

_Something was wrong._

He felt the moment the wolf's head was severed, freezing mid-stride and staring at the fire.

_NO!_

The air rushed in to fill the place he'd been and the flames curling over the logs shivered in the sudden draught.

* * *

He stood by the carcass, staring at it, unable to move. The great, slab-muscled body had shrunk a little, the earth around it black with the blood that had drained out, staining the fur at the ragged edges of the chest. All three heads lay separated, eyes open and staring and glazed over in death. The glint of silver caught the demon's eye and he knelt beside the wolf's head, opening the mouth and lifting out the chain, the round disc hanging from it avoiding his eye somehow.

_Winchester._

The thought came to him certainly. Under the hyena head, the oily gleam of black metal protruded and he reached for it, pulling his hand back as the incautious movement to touch the blade sliced through the tip of his finger, and a red-gold light bubbled in the thin line of the parted flesh.

_Blood metal._

The mists on the other side of the river swirled and shifted as a vagrant and scented breeze blew across the water. Crowley saw movement in the mist, too distant to make out, to even discern if it was corporeal or merely the airs shifting around on the healthy side of the border.

He looked back at the wolf's head, one hand reaching out to gently close the red eyes, the other clenched tightly around the pendant.


	17. Chapter 17 Cruciatus Inferni

**Chapter 17 Cruciatus Inferni**

* * *

_**Nahant, Massachusetts**_

Dean staggered sideways as his feet hit the rock, dragging Sam with him. He lifted his head and saw the guide, the dark eyes wide with shock and fear, staring at them.

"What have you done?" Kopaki whispered, the long dark coat swirling upward as he turned. Dean's hand flashed out, his groan at the pain of the sudden movement smothered and locked behind his teeth as he caught the Crow's arm.

"Not so fast," he ground out.

Kopaki stared down at the hand on his sleeve. "You killed the guardian!" he hissed at Dean.

"And we're not done," Dean growled at him. "Take us back to the car."

The guide's mouth thinned out, then he turned back to the men, reaching out and gripping both.

The shift was instantaneous this time, an eyeblink of darkness and they stood in the silent clearing next to the black car and the broken building, gravel and weeds under their feet.

"We're done!" Kopaki said, glancing over his shoulder at the trees to the south.

"One more thing," Dean told him, straightening up as he pushed Sam back against the car. "You said that was Crowley's gate?"

The Crow nodded, brows drawing together.

"He got a place around here? On this plane?" Dean asked tersely. A long shot, but worth it if he did.

Kopaki's head jerked back toward the trees. "There, on the cliff edge."

"What?"

The psychopomp vanished, a faint pop as the air rushed in to fill where he'd been and Dean blinked. _Here? Right fucking here?_

"Sonofabitch," he muttered, turning back to his brother and leaning past him to unlock the car door. "Goddamned sonofabitch."

He manoeuvred Sam along the car and around the door, hand over his head as he pushed him inside. Limping around to the trunk, he shook his head slightly again at the Crow's revelation. Didn't change the validity of his arguments, he realised as he opened the trunk and slowly dragged the med kit from the well, they couldn't have gotten in to get the gun without taking the risk of being seen. But … three bullets from that gun and they could've done it – _he_ could've done the job – from a nice, safe distance … _sonofabitch_.

Closing the trunk, he turned back and opened the rear door, pushing the heavy box along the seat and climbing in after it. In the front seat, Sam lifted his head, turning to look at him.

"What are you doing?"

"Stopping the leaks," Dean told him shortly, pulling his jacket off and tossing it on the floor, the ripped and stained shirt following it. "How're you doing?"

"Better." Sam twisted slightly on the seat to look back at him.

"What happened?"

"I don't know." He saw the disbelieving expression on Dean's face and ran his hand through his hair, thinking of how to describe what it'd felt like. "Honestly, Dean. I didn't feel anything – then it was like I'd had a transfusion of butane instead of blood and someone lit a match."

Dean pulled his t-shirt over his head carefully, peering down at the soaked dressing under his ribs and the makeshift dressing Sam had wound around his shoulder. Both had moved in the action, both were saturated. He dropped the t-shirt onto the pile of clothes at his feet and eased the adhesive tape off his skin, the fragile crusts of scab that had covered the bullet hole coming off with the reddened gauze. In the cold salt air, the raw flesh stung.

"Is it still burning?"

"A little," Sam admitted reluctantly. He'd taken off his ichor-soaked clothing and tossed it into the trunk, wiping as much of the hound's blood off himself as he could and changing. He was still burning. "Mostly, I just feel hot."

"Mmm-hmm."

"I can do that."

Dean looked up and shook his head. "I got it."

"You can't even see the exit hole." Sam exhaled loudly and slid feet first out of the car, walking around the rear door. "Move over."

"I got it, Sam," Dean said again, patience wearing thin.

"You want a shot?" Sam ignored him, leaning past to rummage in the kit. "Take the edge off?"

"No."

At the tone, Sam looked more closely at him. "You're not going in after the gun."

_Dammit_, Dean thought, keeping his gaze firmly on the sterilised pack he was ripping. He'd hoped Sam'd been too out of it to hear the Crow.

"Dean."

"Hmm?" He looked up expressionlessly. "If you're gunna help with this, how 'bout you get a move on?"

Sam took the pack from his hands and opened the other end, pushing his brother ungently against the back of the seat. "Lean the other way, so the skin's flat."

Dean obliged, eyes closing as another wave of pain numbed his toes and made his stomach roll. He felt Sam's hands, deft and efficient, cleaning the mess on both sides, smelled the meadow scent of the soft, cool unguent he packed into the wound, heard more packs torn open and felt the silky gauze pads taped firmly over the top.

"Lean forward and toward me," Sam instructed, thoughts churning. Knowing where the house was, of course Dean wanted to go in. The injuries wouldn't stop him, would barely slow him down once they were properly dressed and firmly taped. He wouldn't have much use of his right hand, but as he'd said before, a frontal assault would be suicide, he'd be thinking about sneaking in.

The problem was that the cambion were there. And the nephilim. Even if the medallion hid him effectively from their sight, from the Grigori and the demon, they'd probably notice when Chuck disappeared, assuming Dean could find the prophet, the tablet and the gun at all. He unwrapped the make-shift dressing around his brother's shoulder, lower lip caught between his teeth as he tried to think of a way to convince Dean to let him come along.

"I can sneak in," Dean said, watching at his brother's transparent expressions through half-lidded eyes. "You can't."

"Even if you can get in unnoticed, getting Chuck out won't go the same way."

"I'll get the gun first," Dean countered, wincing as Sam tugged at the cloth stuck in the deep cut, his brother's fast glance at him forcing him into smoothing out his expression. "Enough ammo to take them all and Chuck can walk out."

"Dean, make a fist with your right," Sam said, leaning back a little, his attention on his brother's face. Dean scowled, looking down at his hand. The fingers closed up a little, three of them, anyway.

"I can shoot with my left," he said stubbornly, letting his hand relax. The pain of trying to close his hand had brought beads of sweat to his face and he knew Sam had seen it, his brother taking a cloth and wiping the sweat away without comment.

"If you can find the gun," Sam argued. "If Draxler doesn't see you first. If they don't have wards and protection already in place that trigger an alarm." He soaked the cloth in the saline solution, lifting it carefully free as it loosened.

"Buzzkill," Dean said through closed teeth, focussing his concentration on breathing through the freshnets of agony, on staying fucking _conscious_, as Sam sluiced the open flesh with the solution. "Any of that stuff in there?"

"The topical painkiller?"

Dean groaned softly, trying to nod. Sam pushed the dressings aside and found the small aerosol can.

"It'll hurt worse until the numbing can take affect," he warned him.

"Just spray it in, pack the fucking hole and seal it off," Dean told him, trying not to tense any further. There was a grating sensation in the right collarbone, and he had a feeling it was either cracked or broken. He wasn't going in there with a sling so the whole area needed to be shut off.

Sam looked down at the mass of pulped flesh in front of him. The carnassials of the hyena were cutting teeth, set further back than was normal for a canid, to take advantage of the greater power of the jaw's action. They were designed to crack and crush bone, the animal more scavenger than hunter. And he could see that they'd cracked through the collarbone, shearing the flesh in deep cuts on both sides of Dean's shoulder. It was a miracle he could even lift his hand, he thought as he washed the cuts clean with the salt solution.

"I'm going to pour some alcohol through this, kill anything that hyena had in its mouth," he warned his brother as he unscrewed the lid of the plastic bottle, seeing the muscles tighten again in anticipation.

He was trickling it in when the second blast of burning hit him and he tipped the bottle over, Dean grunting as the raw alcohol flooded his shoulder. He couldn't stop it, dropping to his knees on the door rim of the car, one hand biting deep into the upholstery of the front seat, the other shaking uncontrollably, clear liquid spattering everywhere.

"Christ, Sam!" Dean snarled as he regained control over his nervous system and turned to look at his brother.

Sam knelt beside the seat, head thrown back and the tendons in his neck standing out, his mouth open and his eyes rolled back. Lifting his hand, Dean felt the heat in him before he could touch Sam's skin, seeing every muscle locked and contracted as he shook in anguish.

"What the fuck?" he muttered, catching the almost-empty bottle and righting it. Grabbing his brother's shirt, he pulled Sam onto the seat, half-expecting the upholstery to start smouldering under the heat being generated.

Sam dragged in a breath and pitched forward, leaning out of the car as he managed to throw up a little bile from his stomach, seeing blood in the pool when he opened his eyes.

Resting his hand on his brother's back, Dean felt the heat dissipating again and Sam sat up, wiping an arm over his face.

"Same thing?"

"I think so," Sam replied shakily, spitting again as he tried to rid his mouth of the acid aftertaste.

"No warning?"

"No." It'd lit him up instantly, he thought, replaying the moment unwillingly. One minute, fine, the next on fire and the pain so intense that he was surprised his heart hadn't given out with the shock of it. He could feel his pulse, booming in his ears, but it was steady and it was slowing.

"I think this is clean enough now," Dean said, looking at the reddened mess of his shoulder. He leaned across the lid of the kit and picked up the spray Sam'd dropped.

Sam glanced at him, spitting again out through the door and turning back, his hand held out. "Give it to me."

"Jesus, no," Dean said, pulling his hand back. "You go up in flames again, who knows what the fuck you'll do to me."

"Wow, you're funny," Sam said, his gaze shifting to the front of the car, hand snatching the can off him when Dean automatically followed his gaze. "Was it bad?"

Dean lifted a brow. "I was waiting for your head to explode, dude, like in that movie."

"What movie?"

"The movie where the fucking dude's head explodes!"

"Hold still," Sam said, uncapping and spraying the contents over the open wounds.

Dean's breath hissed in between his teeth, his eyes screwing shut as he forced his jaws to remain closed. The spray hit like a million needles, biting viciously. He shunted the sensation to one side, his breath coming easier as the spray began to numb the nerve endings.

"You can't go in there alone," Sam said, watching Dean's shoulders unclench slowly.

"You can't help with this," Dean said, opening his eyes and looking at his brother. "Whatever that is, it's coming on without warning, and it's fucking incapacitating you, man. You'll be a sitting duck if it happens in the middle of things."

There was no argument against that simple fact, Sam realised with an inward grimace. He could visual the scenario easily enough. He'd be helpless and Dean would be stuck with protecting him, even if it meant losing what he was going in there to find.

Seeing the capitulation in the slump of his brother's shoulders, Dean felt himself start to relax a little as well. The odds were stacked high against him as it was, Sam would've been more than a liability.

"How long do I give you?" Sam asked resignedly.

He looked at his watch. "Till morning. If I'm not out by then, I won't be coming back."

Barely feeling the cool paste Sam was packing the wounds with, Dean thought about how to do actually do it. They'd caught a glimpse of the house from the base of the cliff. In the moonlight against the dark sky, it'd seemed enormous. He was willing to bet there was a basement, possibly more than one level. He'd start with that. Work his way up.

It gave him a place to start, but that was all. Mostly, winging it like this, opportunity arose and was either seen or not. And something was missing; something was nagging at him, buzzing at the back of his mind.

Sam set the gauze dressings over the open slashes and around and over the shoulder, binding them firmly around the shoulder, arm and chest. "Busted your collarbone, I'll try and give it some support."

Nodding, Dean looked down at the pile of filthy clothes on the floor. His duffle was in the trunk, he could get some reasonably clean ones out of it. He closed his eyes and probed mentally at his body, accepting the weak areas and noting what was still strong. He hadn't lied to Sam. He could shoot with his left hand. He was a fucking lousy shot with it, but he could do it. Sneak in and out, he told himself. No heroics. Nothing fancy. Just … unnoticeable.

* * *

The navy jacket was oil-stained but otherwise clean. He blended in against the darkness of the trees better in it. The automatic was in the pocket, Sam's long black-bladed knife held by his belt, Ruby's knife sheathed at the back of his hip. He looked around the silent clearing, Sam standing beside him, trying to shake the feeling that he'd forgotten something.

"Sam, at dawn, you get going." He turned away, moving toward the trees at the southern end, the sea breeze freshening on his face.

Sam nodded, then called out softly as his brother disappeared into the treeline. "Dean … don't do anything stupid."

* * *

_**US 191, Utah**_

"There's a road going through," Peter said softly.

Elias nodded. "They're on the eastern flank, between the peak and the next ridge. We can follow the road to within a couple of miles – I don't want to get any closer."

Penemue looked at him. "That is a wise decision. Even with the sigils, if they have laid trap wards and triggers around the area, we wouldn't see them before setting them off."

"What angles are our best bets?" Vince asked, scratching unconsciously at the paste-filled cuts that marked his chest beneath his clothing.

"You and Peter check it out from that south-west peak, below the ridge line if you can. The scopes'll give you a pretty close look. Me and Penemue'll take the north-east ridge line, before the woods head down the slope. We'll be dark," he added, looking from Peter to Vince. "Lee and Joseph will stay with the cars here."

"Dark?" Penemue raised an eyebrow at Peter.

"No voice, no signals. On our own," Peter clarified briefly, glancing at Vince. "Ready?"

The younger hunter nodded, a cocky grin lifting one cheek. "Always."

Elias refrained from commenting about the expected lifespan of cocky young men and gestured to the Qaddiysh. "We'll go north, and then cut over."

* * *

Lying in the thick wet mass of dead leaves and pine needles, Elias moved the scope incrementally across the distant compound, automatically filing numbers, layout, vehicles and the guards he could see. He knew the tall, dark-haired fallen angel was a few feet to his left but he could neither see nor hear him, and he liked that just fine.

Dean was going to be rabid to get here, he thought, staring at the buildings. They'd counted five Grigori at least, a dozen nephilim and several others he wasn't sure of, hoping that Penemue would be able to identify them when they returned to the cars. There were twenty or more humans moving around as well, some of them guards, but others were prisoners, leg chains limiting their movement and all wearing some kind of collar around their necks. They looked fed, the ones he'd seen. He couldn't make out much more detail than that.

It might've been a resort or a private ranch, he couldn't tell. There were a lot of buildings, of varying sizes, some of which had obvious functions, others that were less than obvious. If some of the humans he'd seen were identified as cambion, they would need more than the node stones to take them out, they'd need weapons. At least three were still teenagers, and he wasn't sure if that made a big difference or not.

Easing his gaze down to his watch, he realised that it was time to go. He looked slowly around the compound again, double-checking that he had all the information that could be gleaned from such a distance and started to ease himself back down the eastern slope of the ridge.

* * *

"Cambion, definitely," Penemue told him as they walked together down the narrow dirt road another two miles further from the ridge. "I counted six, as you did. Three still under their majority, and the other three mature adults."

"What'd you think of the slave setup?" Elias asked, most of his attention on the woods around them, the road behind them and the normal, expected sounds from both.

Penemue glanced at him quizzically. "It looked like they were slaves," he said, somewhat mystified. "Captured to serve the Grigori."

Elias blinked, lifting a thick auburn brow as he turned his head to look at him. "They want servants?"

"They've always had slaves," Penemue told him dryly. "Household, farm, workers, sexual – that was one of the many reasons people disappeared in the areas they settled."

"Something else I noticed," the hunter said, shunting the disgust aside as he remembered another detail. "None of the nephilim or the cambion women were pregnant, or at least, they didn't seem to be showing, and the women at home all are now – didn't Ninshursag have the same effect on them as on the regular humans?"

Several of the chained human women had been pregnant, the ones who hadn't looked as if they might've been too old.

The Qaddiysh shrugged. "I don't know. They might have been protected or might have protected themselves."

Too many fucking things that they didn't know about these creatures, Elias thought sourly, and not enough that they did. Felix and Frances were working full-time on getting all of this information together, they might finish in time to help the next generation.

"How long have you known the Winchesters?" Penemue asked him, his face cool and expressionless.

Elias turned to look at him, wondering at the change in subject. "Not long. I met their father, a long time ago, heard rumours about them, a lot of rumours in the last few years."

"You were there, weren't you? In Iowa?"

"Yeah," Elias allowed warily. "I was there."

"Do you still trust Dean to lead these people?" The Qaddiysh asked, his tone clipped. "Will you still follow him?"

The auburn-haired hunter stopped on the dusty road. "That's probably not a question you should be throwing around right now," he said slowly.

Penemue stopped and turned to him. "Nevertheless, I am asking it."

"Yeah, I trust him," Elias said, steel-blue eyes narrowing slightly. "I'll follow him."

"Why?"

"Because he won't give up," Elias said after a moment's thought about it. "He won't give in – no matter what else happens."

"His resolve, it is still strong?"

"I guess you could put it that way."

"Thank you," Penemue said, turning away and resuming his pace down the road.

"Hold on." Elias strode after him, catching the fallen angel's arm and dragging him to a stop. "Why'd you ask me that?"

"My brothers and I, we have risked our lives to come to this country, to do what we can in the face of the events that are unwinding," Penemue said, looking down at the hunter. "We watched Winchester kill Lucifer, in the city to the south." He shook his head slightly. "His own people are questioning him now, questioning his loyalties, his ability to lead. We must know where we stand, Elias."

"Who's questioning Dean?" the hunter asked, frowning.

"The people in the keeps," Penemue said, gesturing vaguely eastwards.

"They're civilians, they don't know what the hell is going on."

"But they are losing that trust in him," the Qaddiysh told him. "And it may be that he will need their support, one day soon."

"What the fuck do you know, Penemue?" Elias growled softly.

"Nothing," the Qaddiysh said quickly. "Nothing concrete. You know he is supposed to be standing over the lines. Changing them?"

"Yeah, Jerome's talked about it."

"The second trial involves the retrieval of Lucifer's sword, from the Cage on the ninth level of Hell," Penemue explained. "None but Lucifer and his chosen vessel may touch that sword – any other faces instant death."

Elias licked his lips as he took that in. "So Sam's supposed to do these trials?"

"We believe so."

"And Dean?"

"We don't know about that," Penemue admitted. "Without more knowledge, we don't know if that was meant to be from the beginning or not."

"Son of a bitch," the hunter said softly. Dean had been told by Death that he would close the gates of Hell. What'd changed in the last six months to make that impossible? The trials had been written more than two thousand years ago, according to Jerome and the other scholars. Why would Death see something other than what had been spelled out for that long?

* * *

_**Nahant, Massachusetts**_

Dean crouched in the herbaceous border that separated the huge house from its nearest neighbour, looking at the lights in the rooms he could see from the front and side, his fingers feeling automatically for the chain.

He looked down when he couldn't find it, the memory flooding his mind at the same time. Gleaming around the yellowing-ivory tooth. Choking him. The lift of the wolf's head and he'd dropped to the ground, slipping through it.

_It was still on the banks of the Acheron._

He swore silently for two minutes, eyes shut and teeth clenched. Then he opened his eyes and looked back at the house. With it or not, he was going in. He was too fucking close to back out now.

With the views of the sea on two sides of the house, and the front an unlikely prospect, he moved back out of the border and worked his way through the overgrown woodland on either side of the straight driveway, moving as slowly as he could to the western side of the building. The trees had encroached much closer over what had once been lawn, and he stopped as he neared the north-west corner, pressed back against a tree-trunk, golden light spilling across the dead grass from the curtainless window giving him a view into the house.

Baeder and Dietrich stood there, in a parlour or drawing room or whatever the hell it was, both Grigori holding glasses, their expressions reflecting their conversation. Baeder looked pissed, Dean thought, with a thin thread of satisfaction at the sight; Dietrich looked mockingly amused as he lifted his glass to the other man. Dragging his gaze from them, he studied the room, then the front of the house. If the rooms to either side of the central hall were mirrored, there would be a back hall to the kitchen and wherever they'd stashed the servants back in the day, and at least two staircases leading to the upper floors, a grand one at the front of the house and a smaller, narrow one somewhere at the back. On the other side, maybe mirroring the dining room, he had a good possibility of finding Crowley's study or some variation of it. And he was almost sure, Crowley would be keeping the firearm in there, as it had been kept in the echo of this house on the lower plane.

The back of his neck prickled sharply and he stopped moving, turning very slowly, his gaze tracking his immediate surroundings from the ground up. He saw it a moment later, jammed in the fork of the tree behind and to one side of him. Apple-sized, the wizened and crinkled ball of leather didn't look particularly threatening but he hesitated as he took a step closer, the creases seeming to shift minutely, shadows deepening fractionally. Better to leave it alone, he thought, stepping back from it. And give it a wide berth. Backing through the undergrowth, he skirted the tree and its peculiar decoration widely, looking around more carefully as he moved through the thickly growing trees and saplings. The prickle vanished as he'd backed up from the tree, and he worked his way around the corner of the house without feeling it again, looking at the slanted basement door with a wash of relief.

There was no lock on the peeling, planked doors, just a bolt on the outside. He drew it back gently and opened one side, staring into a black void below the top three steps. He waited a minute, senses desperately stretched out for a wrong noise, wrong smell, wrong feeling ... nothing came out of the black, the nerves on the back of his neck remained quiet, his Spidey sense quiescent. Climbing down the shallow steps into the darkness, he eased the door shut behind him.

At the bottom of the steps, he hesitated again, wondering at the wisdom of turning on a flashlight in a place so full of enemies. The alternative, blundering through the dark into who-knew-what was not appealing. If, for some reason, there _was_ a delicately piled heap of stuff that would make a racket if he ran into it, it would be a lot better if he could see to avoid it, he decided. He pulled out the flashlight and thumbed it on, moving the beam slowly around the room. It was bare and dusty and empty, a timber and metal chute beside the steps he'd come down suggesting that it was the coal cellar. The space wasn't anywhere near the size of the house and in the corner, the flashlight beam showed a door, heavy and closed with a simple latch.

He flicked off the flashlight and lifted the latch carefully, cracking the door. A sliver of light fell into the room.

Peering out cautiously, he saw a wide hall with a staircase at both ends and closed doors punctuating the length. _Multiple choice_, he thought bitterly, hesitating on the threshold. _Gun first_.

With it, he could go through the house like a dose of salts, cleaning as he went. Without it, even if he found Chuck and the tablet, he would only have the black knife and Ruby's knife and he didn't think either would be enough to give him an advantage over Draxler or the nephilim. The knowledge that he'd come in here, loaded with rage but nothing else, gnawed at him. It had not been a smart move.

He slipped into hall, drawing the door closed behind him, and headed for the stairs to the right. He could smell the salt on the faintly damp air, a remote thought about how thin the cliff walls were between the basement and the sea drifting at the back of his mind.

At the top of the stairs, another door led into the brightly-lit kitchen, and he crossed the exposed room quickly, finding the narrow hall on the eastern side of the house. Every door along it was shut. He tried the first, finding a small bathroom. The second, on the other side of the hall, was a store-room. His hand closed around the door-knob of the third door, when he felt a breath on the back of his neck.

_No warning. Again._

"You shouldn't have come here," a pleasant baritone told him mildly. "Not your time yet."

Before he could move or even figure out what that meant, an arm had hooked around his neck, muscle and tendon cutting off the blood supply on either side, the sleeper hold fast and effective and darkness swallowing him without protest.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Father McConnaughey pushed aside the pile of paper in front of him and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes tiredly with his fingertips. On the other side of the table, Baraquiel sucked in a sharp breath, long red hair spilling forward over one shoulder as he leaned closer to the typed transcription, his eyes narrowing.

"_The penitent will enter the Cage and take the sword of the Most Unclean from him. The sword is brought back and the trial is completed with the renewal of the contract with God_."

Father Emilio looked curiously across the table at him. "What is it?"

"The second trial requires the sword of Lucifer," the Qaddiysh said, staring at the page.

"Yes," Father Emilio agreed mildly, leaning toward him. "And?"

"And no one can touch an angel's sword." Baraquiel lifted his gaze to the priest. "Each sword resonates with the angel's frequency – their exact frequency – to touch one would create a dissonance in the energy and destroy the person attempting to take it."

"It's impossible?" Father McConnaughey looked at him, silver brows drawing tightly together. "It can't be."

"Not impossible," the angel said, shaking his head as he turned to him. "One man can retrieve Lucifer's sword. His vessel."

"Sam," Father Emilio said. The Jesuit closed his eyes.

"Yes."

"And if Dean has already killed Cerberus?"

Baraquiel stared at him helplessly. "I do not know."

"Only one can complete the trials, and once the contract has begun, to forfeit the quest is to forfeit life," Father McConnaughey said slowly. "Is there a way to shield the sword? To handle it without touching it?"

"An angel may," Baraquiel nodded. "Silk is a powerful shield. Or lead. That is what we would use to collect the weapons of the dead and bury them together. I have never heard of a human doing so, but that means nothing."

"We'll know when they return," Father Emilio said decisively. "Until then, we must hope that they have either failed, or that somehow, Sam killed the hound."

"Thin bloody hope," Father McConnaughey said caustically. "I told you this wasn't set."

The Jesuit looked at him with a tired smile. "So you did. Would you like a medal?"

"The way in is cleared by the dog's death," Baraquiel interjected quietly, seeing the older priest's face darken. "Did they know this? The blood of Cerberus is the key to the doors of Hell. They will need it to enter to perform the second ordeal."

"I'm not sure," Father Emilio said, frowning at the pages in front of the Qaddiysh. "We weren't looking for the answers to the second trial before they left."

"What a great bloody mess," said Father McConnaughey, pushing his chair back irritably and getting to his feet. "We've been one step behind the whole time."

"Well, we'll just have to pick our pace." The Jesuit looked up at the old man. "Sam included the details of moving through the accursed plane with what we have on the second trial before he left. Alex underlined this in those notes – No weapon save the divine will wound or kill them. There is an order to these instructions but it was designed to be clear only to the prophet, studying the entire tablet over time. The blood of Cerberus is necessary to open the doors to Hell once the borderlands have been entered. The first trial was to kill the dog. And presumably, take it's blood. The second trial is to retrieve the sword of an angel from the deepest level. The instructions on getting there are spelled out. Only a divine weapon can kill an arch demon. The only divine weapon available will be Lucifer's sword –"

"You think the third trial will be to kill one of the Fallen?" Baraquiel looked at him uncertainly.

"I am reasonably sure that it will be," Father Emilio said. "Each trial increases in difficulty, but each provides the essential key to the next. It is logical."

"We don't know what happened to the Fallen," Father McConnaughey pointed out, his tone acidic. "We don't know how many there are."

"There are – were – four left, after Winchester was raised," Baraquiel said, looking at him. "Crowley could not have taken them by force."

"And the angel said that the gates had to be closed before they were released," Father Emilio added. "The demon found a way to bind them."

"If they are bound, then killing one or all of them should be an easier task?" Baraquiel suggested. "Getting past them to the Cage should also become less of a risk to the penitent."

Father McConnaughey shook his head impatiently. "This is pure speculation. And we have no further information on the arch demons – it may be on the tablet, but it is not here."

"It is," Baraquiel said, getting up and moving around the table to the stacks of typed transcripts. "It is just not obvious."

"The histories?"

"Yes."

* * *

_**Lightning Oak Keep, Kansas**_

Ellen sat down as she felt the kick, running her hand automatically over the curve of her belly. So far, so good, she told herself. She was forty-two and it'd been a long time since she'd done this, but everything had come back, as if the intervening years hadn't existed, the tiredness and the surges of emotions, the powerful desire to make everything ready, to have her home back.

The tower had been rebuilt, wider and stronger, Liev had assured her, with additional accommodation added to the keep's interior for the population explosion to come. They'd lost most of their possessions in the attack, and finding more had proved more difficult than she'd imagined. There were undoubtedly cities throughout the country that held what they needed, wrapped and stored and waiting for them to find, but it required people to go out and find them, and everyone had too much to do as it was. Ryan had been teaching basic carpentry for the last four weeks, and their table and chairs were simple, straight-legged and straight-backed, shining pale gold under the fresh coats of varnish, a plain sofa and armchairs built by the apprentices and upholstered in the thick newly woven wool mixes of Sarah's group, weavers in training. For a moment, looking at them, Ellen wondered if this was a glimpse into their future – no more exotic fabrics, at least not until the weavers had mastered the techniques. Everything utilitarian until time wasn't such a precious commodity.

"You alright?" Bobby walked into the room, pushing his cap back as he saw her.

"Fine," Ellen told him, shunting the introspective worries aside. "What did Boze have to say?"

Sitting in the armchair across from her, Bobby scratched the short beard consideringly. "They tracked the pack into the forest – the older forest – and killed most of them last night," he told her. "Some got away. Said that the werewolves were different though."

"Different how?" Ellen asked, a trickle of unease rising up her spine at his expression.

"It was night," Bobby hedged. "Boze said that they could've made a mistake."

"Bobby," Ellen said warningly. "Mistake about what?"

The hunter sighed. "He said that a lot of them looked like wolves."

"Actual wolves?"

"That's what he said."

"What does that mean?" she asked him. "Werewolves barely transform in real life. Teeth, eyes, they get stronger … that's about it."

"Yeah, I know," he said, lifting his hands helplessly. "I'm just the messenger."

"Did they get any footage?" Close circuit video had been SOP for the camps and the keeps here since the croat attack two years ago.

He shook his head. "No, they were too far out."

"Whose word are we taking on this?"

"Boze saw one. Maurice reported the same thing, when they got back to the camp," Bobby said. "If they re-gather, try and attack the camps again, we might get some pictures."

"Did you ask Michel where Nintu is now?" she asked. He looked at her, feeling the smooth hum of their thoughts in synchronisation. That'd been the first thing he'd done when he'd heard the Tawas report.

"Yeah, she's north, eastern Canada, in the high lats," he told her.

"So she could've released Raat?"

"I think she did that before she went south to Texas." He looked down at his hands, resting on his knees. "That pack was circling Tawas before we got word of the skinwalker's location."

"What's the lore on the early generations of the werewolves?"

"Not much," Bobby said unhappily. "Santos specialised in them, but I haven't heard from him for years."

"Santos? He died in '09, Bobby," Ellen said. "Mariana took over the research but she wasn't hunting."

He looked at her with a surprised chuckle. "How'd you keep in touch?"

"I keep tabs on everyone," she told him dryly. "Even if Mariana didn't make it, she wouldn't've left that library unprotected."

"Alright, who can we spare to take a look?"

"Did you meet Tilly when they came in with Maurice?"

He scratched his brow, looking down. "The woman who learned about hunting from Chuck's books?"

"That's her," Ellen said, stretching her legs out. "She trained up five or six people while they were stuck in Minnesota, not bad either."

"Christ, Ellen, they're total rookies!"

"No, they looked after themselves before Maurice found them and they've been on a refresher course with Kelly and Franklin, who has a few new trainees himself, by the way," she added, tilting her head as she looked at him. "Vince can take point, he's had a couple of days off now, and he's met Mariana. If she's still there, he'll be a familiar face."

"Alright, alright," he gave in abruptly. "I'll give Franklin a call, tell him to get the trucks ready."

"Bobby, Vince asked me what I thought Dean would want to do about the Grigori settlement they found."

"What can he do?" he asked. "He and Sam won't be back for at least another few days. They weren't moving, he said. Just … waiting, by the sounds of it."

"The passes are all clear, they could come for us at any time," she argued.

"But they haven't," Bobby said reasonably. "An' they probably won't on their own, they'll wait for Crowley to rustle up another army before they try to take us."

"I thought Dean would want to take them out before it got anywhere near that," she said.

"Yeah, probably he would." He looked at her. "Probably, he will, when he gets back. In the meantime, I'm not losing sleep over it."

Watching the expressions cross her face, he moved from the chair to the sofa, putting his arm around her. "What?"

"After what happened with Lisa, I didn't think he'd ever get past that," she said softly, leaning her head back against his shoulder. "But he did, somehow, and a few days before the attack, when I was over at the keep, I got such a strong feeling that he'd figured something out, found what he'd been searching for."

Bobby sighed, his arm tightening around her a little. "Yeah, I know."

"He can't keep taking this punishment, Bobby," Ellen said, thinking of what Dean had told Bobby before he and Sam had left. "It's going to take everything good out of him."

Bobby thought about the man he'd helped John Winchester to raise. He'd met the boy at eight, and he'd known then that Dean had carried the responsibilities of an adult, had borne the load of an adult, guardian to his brother, backup to his father. That load had crippled something inside of him, but he'd never acknowledged it, had never admitted to his fear that he couldn't keep going, doing whatever he had to, sacrificing whatever was needed from him.

It'd come as a surprise to him when Dean had told him to include Alex in whatever information they had. Lisa had been kept firmly at arm's length when it came to what they were fighting, what they were doing. He'd wondered back then, but hadn't asked, if that had been his decision, or Lisa's. The situation with Alex had been different, he admitted to himself. Alex's responsibilities for the keep population – she'd needed to know what they were facing, who would be there and who wouldn't. But it hadn't been that. It hadn't been that at all.

The last conversation, outside the order, he'd finally seen what Dean had kept inside, what her death had done and was continuing to do. He thought Ellen might be right about the hunter, although he knew he wouldn't've been able to believe it before. Everyone had an end point, a point beyond which they just couldn't go. He'd just never thought he'd see Dean's.

* * *

_**Nahant, Massachusetts**_

Cold, damp air goose-fleshing his bared skin. The smell of a reluctantly burning fire, newly lit, the wood wet and charring. His shoulder was a mass of agony, the broken bone and open flesh twisted up, his wrists burning with the rope that held them together, his weight hanging from them. The hole in his side was throbbing insistently, the dressing gone, the skin stretched out between ribcage and pelvis. He couldn't feel ground beneath his feet. For a terrifying moment, his memories filled him, this situation familiar, missing only the nauseating smell of brimstone and the heat of the fires, the chittering of demon's wings high above him, the laughter of the silver-eyed demon. He swallowed, forcing the memories away. Not the same. Not.

Didn't mean he wasn't in big trouble, he thought, opening his eyes slightly, the flickering light from the fire casting moving shadows over rough stone walls, the overhead lights dim and murky and not dispelling those ghostly shadows at all. Baeder stood beside the smoking fire, poking at it with a long iron bar. Dietrich leaned against a cupboard, under a frame on the wall that had been hung with a black cloth. The detail snagged his attention for a moment.

Behind him, he heard a soft rumbling, and a faint scree of metal on stone. The image explaining the noises popped into his mind effortlessly. Grinding stone. Someone was sharpening something.

"He's conscious," the baritone voice of the cambion said from behind him.

"Mr Winchester, you are proving to be a most persistent and irritating obstacle to our plans," Dietrich said, straightening up and walking toward him.

Dean looked at him expressionlessly.

"Ah … no more jokes. Today we get the silent treatment," Dietrich said understandingly. "I'm afraid that won't be acceptable."

He looked past Dean, nodding slightly and Dean heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back across the stone floor, heavy footsteps moving around, a soft hiss and slur that he couldn't identify. The footsteps stopped and he thought Draxler was standing behind him. He forced himself to keep his eyes on Dietrich and ignore the cambion. Whatever was going to happen, he wouldn't be able to talk himself out of it, and for the time being, he didn't have a single other option.

_Physical pain is a key_. Alastair's voice spoke languidly through his memories. _It must be wielded carefully, when the victim is flesh and blood, but down here, it can utilised to the full extent. Almost all souls retain a memory of body, of nerve and muscle, sinew and tendon and blood and bone. Those memories are what we carve, Dean_.

"How did you find this place?" Baeder stepped up beside Dietrich, his single eye glittering in the thick, uneven light, his breathing quickening as his gaze moved over the stripped and helpless man in front of him.

Dean stared at him, lips thinning out in the effort to hold down the fury he felt, his fingers curling slightly as he imagined them tightening around Baeder's neck.

Baeder saw the hunter's eyes darken and felt a frisson of fear spark through his nerves. It'd been a long time since anyone or anything had awoken that sensation in him, and in any other time or place, he might have been intrigued by it, a reaction so unfamiliar. But they didn't have the time. And the knowledge he had of this man, this … monkey wrench, as the demon called him, insisted that they strip whatever information they could from him, and kill him.

Watching an unidentifiable emotion twitch the side of Baeder's face, the side that still had movement, Dean wondered remotely if it had been fear. He saw the Grigori nod and a sharp, whistling noise filled the air behind him. The hardened points and knots of the multiple lashed whip struck his skin, tearing at it and leaving several small, shallow cuts across his upper back, the assault shocking and agonising. He clenched his teeth together, the involuntary contraction of his muscles dragging fresh pain from shoulder and side, feeling his blood welling in the cuts and trickling down his back.

_You're just not getting deep enough. Well, you lack the resources. Reality is just, I don't know, too concrete up here_. Another memory, more recent.

He'd been right, Dean thought. Couldn't pull the wings off up here, nope, nervous system overload and body shock and bam, no more questions. Up here, all they could do was hurt. And he had a wealth of experience with pain.

"How did you find us?"

The moaning whistle of the leather strips through the air. Pain. Lower this time. Blood, running in rivulets over his skin.

He sucked in a deep breath, lifted his head, stared at the Grigori.

"Use the salt," Dietrich said and Dean heard the rustle of a bag behind him.

It burned into the cuts, and then poured into the much deeper tears over his shoulder, the cambion's big hand pressing it in and closing hard around the torn up flesh. Dean felt the bone-deep, wracking shudder from head to foot as he drowned in the burning agony, some distant part of himself watching for the overload.

"Eric, this isn't–"

"How did you find this place?" Baeder cut Dietrich off, his voice rising.

The hardened leather sliced through his skin again, lower down, the cambion's freakish strength bruising skin and muscle, hammering deep.

In Hell, he'd retreated, behind walls, keeping himself apart when the pain had corkscrewed into unbearable, into excruciating, keeping himself sane with the memories of life and his family, with real things he'd hoarded like precious gems. He'd told the demon he'd dreamed of revenge but his dreams had been strings of tiny pearls, tiny, discrete moments remembered from life, strung together and each one anchoring him, reminding him who he was.

"Turn him around." He heard Baeder say distantly, his ears filled with the accelerating rush of his blood.

"Eric! Did you read Crowley's file–" Dietrich's voice was louder, more strident.

"How did you find us?!"

The cambion kept the whip at chest height, and the broken rib flexed sickeningly under the blow, a hundred razors slicing through him and one knot catching the edge of the hyena's bite, sizzling in the raw flesh.

"Give it to me!"

"Eric! He was forty years in the–"

"_HOW DID YOU FIND US!?_"

Dean screamed as the lash ends hit and cut into his abdomen, fire burning across his skin, digging into the flesh below, the Grigori maddened past control and the knout rising and falling repeatedly, leaving bleeding slashes in furrows from collarbone to thigh.

_Carved you into a new animal_, Alastair whispered in his mind. _No. No, you didn't carve anything_, Dean said, unsure if he'd said it aloud or just in his head. _You just gave me 101 in pain management, Alastair._

The epiphany was there and gone as his body began to overload, his throat raw and tasting of copper, agony everywhere and no place to turn from it, to get away from it. Baeder's voice became shrill and the sharp, hardened ends and knots raked across his face, leaving cuts over forehead, cheeks and jaw as he tried to jerk back from it.

His vision was greying out when he felt hot breath against his cheek, a cold, clammy hand clamped around his jaw.

"She screamed, you know," Baeder whispered to him, flecks of spittle hitting his mouth. "Screamed and wept and begged me not to kill her children, your children–"

Inside of him, there was a sudden, deep silence, blocking out the voice that breathed its obscenities at him, the crackle of the fire and the other Grigori's shouting, blocking out the fury that shrieked in his mind, the pounding blood-lust that filled his veins, thrusting aside the agonising pain and the almost-there overload of his nervous system. Inside of him there was a silence and a stillness and he was forced to listen.

_I do, you know_. He heard her voice, clearly. _I do love you_.

The rush of emotion came much faster than the last time and this time he knew what was happening, knew what would happen. His eyelids fell as pure power flushed the pain from his body, wiping him clean of everything but the expanding strength pulsing in time with his heart from somewhere in his centre.

When he opened his eyes, he caught a fragmented glimpse of Baeder's eye, widening at whatever it saw in his face. Then he slammed his head forward, feeling the precise hit on the angel's skull, seeing a split through the skin and under that a crack, seeing it widen as the Grigori dropped like a stone to the floor. He was already moving, legs drawn up tightly, twisting himself around, the chain hobbling his ankles dropping over the cambion's head. He rolled, fast, between the ropes holding him and the half-breed, and the chain crossed and twisted, tightening instantly around the thick neck, Draxler's hands dropping bag and knife to clutch at it, his fingers scrabbling to get under it before it strangled him.

With the momentum of his weight and the swing, Dean dragged the half-breed around, twisting the ropes holding him further, building the kinetic energy in them. He grunted at the effort, muscle and tendon contracting and lifting him almost horizontal, and the cambion was swung off his feet and sent crashing into the wall above the cupboard, smashing the cloth-covered frame.

Under the monstrous strain, the ropes holding him parted and Dean landed on his hands and the balls of his feet, the chain between his ankles broken with the weight of the half-breed and his impact into the wall. Lightning and thunder were filling him up, and he knew he was going to pay for this strength later, if there was a later, but right at this minute, he felt invincible as he hit Dietrich with his left shoulder, knocking the Grigori across the room and into the opposite wall.

The deep growl from behind him gave him a half-second's warning and he was turning, catching the closed fist as it sailed past him, dropping back to the stone floor and planting one bare foot into Draxler's ribs, leg muscle extending and thrusting upwards as he rolled backward with the half-breed's weight and speed and the cambion was lifted and flung across the room.

Rolling over, Dean felt something slice into his palm and looked down, the long sliver of mirror reflecting a part of his face unrecognisably. He picked it up and swung around, holding the mirror up as the cambion rushed for him, bracing himself for the impact.

He watched Draxler glance down at the shard in his hand, saw his eyes widen, almost comically, in terror and then he was gone, the piece of glass much heavier and almost slicing his fingers off as his arm sagged. Dropping it, Dean saw a flashing glimpse of a dark-haired, dark-eyed man as it hit the floor, then the mirror reflected the ceiling only.

Baeder was still out, he noted, scanning the room fast, Dietrich shaking his head and rolling onto his stomach on the other side of the room. He had no time to hang about and wonder about the fucking half-breed. His clothes and the long black knife had been dumped in a pile near the door and he grabbed jeans and the knife, feeling the power that had filled him dissipating, knowing it was only a matter of time before it was gone. Even the soul needed to rest.

Running for the door, he was glad to see that it had a bolt on the outside. He reached out and made a grab for the handle, dragging it shut behind him and slamming the bolt home. He turned around, looking up the hall. Basement, on the eastern side, he thought, recognising the cellar door he'd come through however long ago that'd been. He sprinted up toward the stairs.

* * *

_**River Acheron, Border of Hell**_

Crowley crouched by the wolf's head, absently stroking the long fur as he tried to figure out what had happened. It had to have been the Winchesters, either one or the other or both down here. What possible purpose could killing Cerberus have served? Chuck had produced volumes of paper which were virtually unreadable, but none of it had mentioned the killing of the guardian – he froze as he thought of the prophet and the tablet.

_Unprotected_ prophet and tablet.

Unprotected on the _earthly plane_ prophet and tablet.

Thrusting the pendant in his jacket pocket, he lurched to his feet and disappeared.

* * *

_**Nahant, Massachusetts**_

Leaning against the kitchen cabinet, Dean pulled on his jeans, trying to ignore the bright spears of pain as the denim dragged over the cuts and abrasions. The power he'd pulled had almost gone, and the only thing he had left between him and the overload of pain was the adrenalin that was pumping through his system. It wouldn't last much longer either. He picked up the knife and ran for the hall.

The woman who came around the corner was tall, almost as his own height, slender and shapely in close-fitting, tapered dark pants and a thin, fluffy-looking white sweater, long black hair gathered loosely at the nape of her neck, periwinkle-blue eyes widening in shock as he skidded to a stop in the hall in front of her.

He leapt forward, the blade plunging into her stomach, stopped as the hilt hit her ribs and for a long second, they stood as close as lovers, Dean's gaze shifting from the surprise in her eyes to the trickle of blood that slipped from the corner of her mouth. His hand gripped her shoulder and shoved her backwards, pushing her off the knife's long blade, then the metal whickered through the air as he strode forward in time with her backwards stagger and swung it cleanly. He barely noticed the dull thud of her head hitting the wall.

_Has to be the heart_, he reminded himself, dropping beside her and ramming the blade through the ribs of the fallen body, twisting it and sliding his fingers into the opening. He yanked back on the ribs as the knife sliced through the cartilage holding them together, and drove the edge through the lung, feeling for the large muscle that beat obscenely in his hand as he dragged it free of the chest cavity.

His head snapped up as he heard the pounding of booted feet down the hall, dropping the heart to one side of the body and pulling out the knife, wiping both haphazardly on his jeans. The room was the third door, he remembered, and he raced to it, pulling it open and slipping inside as the pounding grew louder.

The lightswitch was where he expected, slapping a hand to the side of the doorway. The room lit up with a dozen wall sconces and a delicate small chandelier overhead and he looked around a little dazedly. It was, down to the last detail, exactly the same as the room in Hell. Striding fast to the desk, he drove the knife's edge in the thin line between the door and frame of the cupboard, hoping like hell that Crowley had been stupid enough to put the gun back in the same place he'd found it.

The pearwood box was there and it had weight. Dean dropped the knife on the blotter and pulled it out, dragging in a deep breath as the weight pulled at his wounds. He picked up the knife and rammed the blade into the thin gap between the lid and the box next to the lock. A hard twist and the lock broke, the lid flying open. His fingers moved surely over the barrel, breaking the breech and loading the bullets, taking the rest and shoving them into his pockets as he reassembled the barrel, breech and cylinder and felt them click into the grip.

* * *

"Ariana!" Joaquin screamed, running down the hall and falling to his knees beside the dead nephilim. Behind him, Baeder lurched along the hallway, his face a brilliant red with fury, Dietrich half-running behind him. Neither knew what had happened to the cambion, nor to the boy who'd disappeared as well.

"The office!" he snapped at Joaquin, gesturing to the blood-smeared door knob.

"What the fuck is going on here?!" Crowley snarled, materialising on the other side of the nephilim's body, his gaze flicking from the headless corpse to the enraged Grigori. "What happened!"

"Winchester is here," Baeder said, gesturing at the study door as Joaquin turned the knob and threw himself in.

"No – the gun–" Crowley shouted.

* * *

The door burst open, a tall, young man leaping into the room, a deep shout from outside and Dean fired, the first of Colt's bullets ploughing smoothly into Joaquin's chest, blue fire lighting up the punctured heart as the nephilim fell to the floor. He was already moving, accelerating, and he jumped over the body, rocketing into the hallway as he belatedly recognised the voice that had shouted.

Baeder shrieked at him, lunging forward and Dean lifted the gun unhurriedly, the barrel steady as he pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Baeder in the face, lightning crawling over his skull as he seemed to rise straight into the air, neck stretching up, then fell, crumpling as his feet hit the ground. Dean looked down at him, firing again, the second bullet punching through the ribs and into the heart, a flare of cerulean fire lighting the chest cavity.

Crowley swung around, dragging the pendant from his pocket and trying to pull the silver chain over his head, and Dean snapped the barrel up, hitting the demon in the back of the thigh with the first shot. The demon staggered forward, his attempt to disappear failing as the magic of Colt's bullet cut him off from Hell, crackling through his limb and lighting it with a mixture of red and gold and blue and black, the effect disturbingly like lightning in a thundercloud, even through the fabric and flesh. The barrel of the revolver lifted higher and Dietrich fell at the corner of the hall, the small round hole in the centre of the shining burned scalp spitting and sparking blue.

Stepping over Baeder, Dean walked past Crowley, moving along the hall to the other Grigori. Dietrich was dead, the eyes open and staring, but he put another bullet through the back and heart anyway. Just in case.

Turning back, Dean walked slowly back down the hall, stopping in front of the demon and looking down at him, his features as hard and cold as stone.

On the floor, Crowley looked up at him, focussed first on the small round hole at the end of the barrel, then gradually taking in the details of the man holding the gun behind it. _Atropos had been wrong_. The thought intruded suddenly, through the pain that coruscated up and down his leg. Bruised from head to foot, his blood smeared and still trickling from the wounds that had been inflicted over most of the skin he could see, staining the fabric of the jeans he wore, making a mask of the expressionless face, Dean Winchester was the one still standing, holding Colt's gun.

The barrel lifted and Crowley cowered back against the wall. Dean pulled the trigger and the gun clicked. On the floor, the demon sagged backwards, his vessel's heart pounding furiously, surges of mindless relief alternating with the agony of the bullet in his leg.

Turning impatiently away, Dean broke the gun, his fingers automatically feeling and gathering six bullets from the front pocket of his jeans, pulling them out and slotting into them into the revolver's cylinder, his gaze locked onto the demon who was trying to crawl away down the hall, injured leg dragging behind him.

He slid the last one in and replaced the cylinder and breech, the click of the hammer on the empty chamber louder than the demon's frantic breaths. Walking unhurriedly after Crowley up the hall, Dean pulled back the hammer and the cylinder turned.

The demon stopped, twisting on his side as he stared back at the man behind him.

"Wait!" he said, his voice little more than a breathy moan as the power of the bullet in his leg sucked at him. "I can–"

Dean pulled the trigger and Crowley fell backwards, his body convulsed with light. The Colt fired again, the bullet hitting the demon's vessel in the chest. The cylinder revolved and the hammer fell until it clicked empty again.

He leaned over, looking at the silver chain with its small silver medallion, hanging from the demon's hand. Reaching out, he curled his fingers around it, yanking it free of the stiffening hand and turned away.

He could feel exhaustion and overload reaching for him, and he wasn't finished yet. _Do it by the numbers_, he told himself, reloading the Colt and tucking the medallion into his pocket. Chuck was in here somewhere, along with the tablet, and he had to get them out before he could acknowledge anything else.

Looking back down the hall, he thought the basement was probably the best bet and he walked back toward the kitchen, stumbling a little, the muscle in the point of his jaw jumping as he set his teeth and forced himself to keep going.

* * *

The prophet was in a room at the end of the hall that ran east to west under the house. Dean opened the door and saw a body, lying on the floor between the table and wall. Leaning over it, he put his fingers against the neck, straightening as nothing registered against them. A guard? It was possible. Bailed when it got an inkling.

At the table, Chuck was sitting upright, staring fixedly ahead, his hand moving fast over the notepaper, the other hand lying flat and hard against the stone tablet on the table top.

"Chuck," Dean said, walking unsteadily around the table, the adrenalin in his system dissipating. "Chuck!"

Chuck paid no attention to him, the conduit open in his mind, the Word flowing through him to the paper. Dean looked down at the pad and reached over, pulling it out from under Chuck's hand. Chuck kept writing, the pen digging into the wood of the table top and Dean exhaled in exasperation.

He'd have to touch the tablet. He'd been okay before, but Chuck hadn't been plugged into then, and he could see the faint glow in the stone, outlining the writer's hand where it rested over the symbols. He was going to collapse right here if he didn't keep going, he thought bitterly, feeling the clawing pain creeping back up through his already-fried nerves.

_Don't think about it, just do it_, he told himself and his hand snapped out, gripping the edge of the stone and pulling it.

The backlash between himself, the stone tablet and the prophet was instant and immense. Dean was flung across the room and Chuck was thrown back from the table as the connection broke, searing white light filling every corner of the basement room, whiting out every shadow and colour before it vanished back into the tablet.

"What the –" Chuck said, his hands pressing against his temples as the migraine headache pounded behind his eyes, colours smearing and bleeding into each other as he tried to focus on the room.

His eyes narrowed to a squint as he saw Dean, crumpled on the floor at the far end of the room and he got to his feet, weaving across the floor until he reached him.

"Dean!"

The hunter opened his eyes, blinking furiously as he tried to bring the writer's face into focus through the spots that were clouding his vision. "Chuck? You okay?"

"Yeah," Chuck said, looking down at him in shock. "Better than you are."

"That rock – got a kick, huh?"

"Is that what happened?" Chuck asked him in disbelief. "You touched it?"

"We have to go," Dean muttered, pushing himself upright and using the wall behind his back to help him to his feet, sensing the lecture about to come.

"You could've been killed, grabbing it like that," Chuck marvelled, looking back over his shoulder at the table. "You're bleeding."

"Where?" Dean asked, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes as an uncontrollable shudder wrenched through him.

"Everywhere," Chuck said, frowning. "You look like you've been–"

Dean heard the disbelief in Chuck's voice slowly disappearing and knew that the writer was really looking at him now. He opened his eyes and pushed off the wall, grabbing Chuck's arm and forcing him around.

"Can you grab the stone now?"

"No, the conduit's still open – the headache –"

Which meant he had to do it, he thought uneasily, ignoring the rest of Chuck's explanation. "Think it'll throw me again?"

"No," Chuck said certainly. "That was because you got between me and the Word."

"Uh-huh."

"It should be okay now."

"Should be?"

Chuck smiled hesitantly. "Pretty sure it'll be fine now."

_Pretty sure_, Dean thought tiredly. He reached the tablet and leaned over, stopping as his fingers hovered above the stone. _Don't be a wuss_, he told himself. His hand curled around the stone and he felt something pass into him, a warmth or a peace or something that eased the agony throbbing in his body for a second's bright respite.

"Okay," he said, turning and gesturing to the doorway. "Let's go."

Holding the stone against his chest, he followed Chuck up the stairs.

* * *

_**Hell, Eighth Level**_

The Throne shuddered on its plinth, and every demon turned in the endless tunnels and caverns and pits of Hell, looking toward the Fifth Level.

A wind, directionless and smelling of cold metal and acid, twisted through the rock, soughed through the thick wire of the nets, lifted and eddied over the molten lake and swept through the daevas in the abyss. It reached through the bonds holding the three, and they felt the diaphanous touch of the dark shrouds against skinless, bony faces, stepping back from each other, turning to look upward, like the rest, toward the Fifth Level and the golden throne it held.

"The demon is-s-s-s-s-s dead."

"The Faithless have fallen by his side."

The Throne should've protected the ruler, they knew. It should've protected their Prince as well. It hadn't. There was only one reason for that, but it wasn't time. Wasn't the end of time. Minds, black and ancient and tortured into entirely new frequencies, joined together and searched through the width and breadth and depth of the planes, noting the changes as they saw them.

The Guardian of the Gates, dead. Raphael, dead. Heaven on the brink of civil war. Hell in chaos. The remaining Faithless in their fortresses, hiding from whatever had killed their brothers. Nintu, Dark Mother, walking free and her children awakening.

A time of chaos. A time of change.

* * *

_**Nahant, Massachusetts**_

Sam leaned against the Impala, legs still shaking as the heat and burn dissipated from his body from the last conflagration. In the east, along the endless line of the ocean's flat horizon, he could see the sky lightening. It was morning. He wasn't going anywhere.

The crack of a branch in the trees sharpened his attention and he pushed himself off the car, lifting his flashlight and flicking it on, the beam skating along the dark trunks and catching a pale face in its light.

He walked toward them, Chuck half-carrying, half-dragging Dean beside him, his brother covered in blood and barely moving his feet.

"What the hell happened?" he asked Chuck, taking Dean's arm from him and wrapping his own around him, leaving Chuck to stumble along beside them.

"I'm not sure, he's not very coherent," the writer said, hurrying ahead of them and opening the rear door of the car, relieved to see the first aid kit already there. "They had him, were torturing him, I think, and he got away somehow, got the gun and killed them, came and broke the connection between me and the tablet …" he trailed off as Sam approached, realising the tall hunter wasn't really listening to him.

Sam eased Dean into the back seat, pressing his fingers against the side of his neck and feeling a wave of relief spread over him as he felt the steady heartbeat. Under the sharp brightness of the interior light of the car, he saw the cuts and bruises, the slashes and chunks of bloodied salt packed into shoulder and the longer, deeper open wounds on his back, rope burns circling his wrists, the iron shackles with their trailing ends of chain still fastened to his ankles. Tortured. _Yeah_, he thought, a ripple of nausea turning his stomach over slowly.

Clutched in one hand, Dean held the tablet, in the other, held bundled against the side of his chest, what was left of his clothes, Ruby's knife, the black metal knife of the Qaddiysh and the long black barrelled Colt. Looking down at the treasures his brother carried, Sam felt his mouth quirk up to one side.

"Dean," he said, gently uncurling his brother's fingers and moving the items piece by piece to the floor. His brother didn't respond, didn't move and Sam glanced at Chuck, sitting in the front seat. "You can't touch the tablet, can you?"

Chuck shook his head. "Not without going into a trance."

He couldn't touch it either, not comfortably. He decided to leave in it in Dean's hand. The shoulder needed cleaning out again, he thought, leaning over his brother to peer at it more closely. And the hole in his side was bleeding again. The rest of the cuts, although many, looked more superficial. He thought the bruising and trauma to the skin and muscle underneath would be worse than the cuts themselves. And trying to get him cleaned up might wake him. It could only have been the pain that had put him under at this point. He didn't want to bring him back up to that.

Looking back over the front seat at the prophet, he gave Chuck a rueful smile. "Since Dean is fucked and I'm likely to burst into flames at any minute, that leaves you to get us home, I'm afraid."

Chuck's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. "What?"

"Come on, don't tell me you haven't been dying to drive this car since you first wrote about it, Chuck," Sam said, pulling out the saline solution and the gauze dressings again. "He won't know."

* * *

_**I-70 W, Indiana**_

Chuck drove like an old lady, Sam thought, wrung out from the last hour of burning up and throwing up. Just as well maybe, given that Dean would kill him if he put a scratch on the car.

He turned his head, feeling his neck creak as he looked into the back seat. Stretched out along it, a blanket loosely tucked around him, the tablet still clutched in one hand and resting on his chest, Dean had been out for the last fifty-two hours. They'd stopped in New York, just before they'd hit Pennsylvania, for a couple of hours, Chuck needing more meds and some sleep, and Sam needing to move around, the constant cramping in his limbs and abdomen becoming a torment after hours in the car.

He'd cleaned his brother up a little then, swallowing often as he catalogued the injuries, his imagination providing him with detailed suggestions as to how they'd been inflicted. He'd put stitches in the larger cuts, across his back where the lash had gone into muscle, and taped the rest, practically coating Dean's skin in Oliver's healing paste, hoping it would do the job. He'd been vaguely surprised to see that the bullet hole had closed again, noticeably smaller than when he'd re-dressed it. The deep tears in Dean's shoulder had also seemed … smoother, less torn up … when he'd gone to change the dressings and re-pack it with the sweet-smelling unguent. His gaze fell on the tablet, and he stared at it uneasily, wondering if it had had anything to do with his brother's deep sleep, or the accelerated healing of the wounds.

At the rate Chuck was going, it would be another two days to get back to the keep. There was still no predictability to the … _attacks? episodes? proddings of an unmerciful God?_ He could feel almost-fine one minute and be rigid the next, unable to move or breathe, every cell in his body feeling as if it had been filled with acid, the burning penetrating deeper each time it happened.

_This blood, it's not in you the way it's in me._

He remembered saying that to Dean, in the car, driving away from Carthage and his heart hammering against his ribs with the replays of Jack Montgomery's transformation going on and on in his mind.

The blood had been there since he'd been six months old. He'd thought it would always be there, something he would always have to live with, like – like – like the possibility of a remission.

He didn't think that now.

He'd watched the blood spill out of his brother when he'd taken the vampire cure. Ejected by the cure's ingredients, by the alchemical process and the way they'd interacted to draw it, cell by cell, from his arteries and veins and capillaries, returning it to his stomach so that it could be expelled for good.

Only the penitent could close the gates of Hell. In the translations, Alex's transcriptions from Chuck's notes, that was what the applicant to the trials had been called.

The _Penitent_.

Repentant. Contrite. Humble and seeking forgiveness from God.

The definitions played through his mind. He was closer now. But he guessed that the physical evil had to be burned out before much else could progress. The thought terrified him.

_Bless me, Father, for I have sinned_.

Would he have to confess his sins? Out loud? To someone else? He wasn't sure he could go that far, be that naked and vulnerable in front of someone. Dean knew what he'd done but his brother couldn't talk to him about it. The times he'd tried to apologise, to explain, had only made things worse between them. He hadn't understood then, but he understood it now. Dean had already known the explanations. What he couldn't do was hear Sam say it aloud. Say it to him.

Pride was the Father of all sins, and Greed the mother, he'd heard that somewhere once. Pride had been his sin. Was it still? How could he be sure that he wasn't still acting from his pride, telling himself that there'd been reasons for what he'd done? He knew the answer to that too. He was. Still. And the blood was being burned out of him, ejected from him, the contract he'd signed willingly was going to force him into purity and test him unto death.


	18. Chapter 18 The Straits of Fear

**Chapter 18 The Straits of Fear**

* * *

_**Heaven**_

Castiel looked around the light-filled room resignedly. It didn't look like a prison, but it was. He'd been here for nine weeks, as the humans counted time, long enough to know that whatever had happened in the settlements was long over, and long enough to know that either Dean or Sam or both would probably have begun the trials.

His return to Heaven had been confusing, Gabriel disappearing in search of Michael, and three of the seraphim who served Raguel escorting him here, asking him to wait for the commander. He'd waited for some time before he'd decided to try and find Michael himself. And it had been then that he'd realised he was in a prison. No door marred the smooth walls. He could not reach out to his brothers, in mind or heart or body. He was, in fact, stuck.

Most of his time here had been spent in meditation, trying to separate the facts from the rumours, from the half-truths and outright lies he'd been told. It had become clear to him that Raphael may have been leading the rebels but he was not the only architect of the conspiracy to change the rule of Heaven. He wondered vaguely who had been hiding more deeply in the shadows, content to direct without showing themselves. There were not many who had the power and the motivation to manoeuvre the Divine plane into the chaos in which it was now enveloped. Only the archangels could control the lower ranks. Only the archangels could hope to contend Michael's command of the Host. And there were only four of the seven remaining.

He blinked and looked up as a rustle of wings announced his visitor.

"Castiel, my deepest apologies," the angel who stood before him said, the tenor voice inflected with a regret that Cas doubted was real.

He got to his feet, looking at the archangel. Tall, with long, golden hair, the colour of burnished wheat, flowing over shoulders and between the rose-tinted grey wings. He had been promoted to the Voice of God when Metatron had fled Heaven, and had taken his duties seriously for two millennium.

"Camael, what's going on?" the angel said, stepping closer. "Where's Michael? I was told he needed to see me – weeks ago! By whose orders have I been –"

"Michael has been putting down the rebel faction, Castiel," Camael said, one hand lifting and gesturing vaguely. "After Raphael's death, they united and attempted to take over, it was only the strength of the Host that kept the Pillars in place. He has been in a state of meditation since the rout, seeking answers from our Father."

"And Gabriel?"

"Gabriel in on the lower plane," the archangel told him, his wings shivering restlessly. "The Grigori have risen in Asia and Europe, they have been using a spell to raise the dead."

"Raise the dead?" Cas frowned at him. "For what purpose?"

"They are trying to build an army, we believe," Camael said, his face expressionless. "Raguel needs to speak to you, he asks that you be patient – he will not be long, but this –" He gestured at the walls of the room. "– is necessary, until he can get here."

"Necessary?"

"The rebels know that you have helped the humans, Castiel," Camael said quietly. "You are in danger every moment you are in Heaven – they have sworn to kill you."

Castiel studied the archangel's face. Angels did not lie. Except when they did. He'd spent a lot of time with the Winchesters, had learned something from Dean's ability to tell a liar when faced with one.

"So this prison, it's for my safety?" he asked, without emphasis.

"Precisely. To keep you safe," Camael agreed. "It won't be much longer, I can promise you that." He turned away. "Raguel did need to know if you can tell us the locations for the human settlements?"

"You can't find them?"

The archangel shook his head. "They are hidden now. Raguel is worried that if they need help we won't be able to find them to provide assistance in time."

Cas opened his mouth automatically, obediently, to give the locations of the keeps in Kansas and camps in Michigan and hesitated. "I do not have those locations, Camael," he said instead, looking steadily into the other's eyes as the arch turned to look at him.

"Really?"

Cas shrugged. "I find the Winchesters when they pray for assistance, otherwise their location is hidden to me as well."

He watched the archangel turn away again, the shifting grey feathers of the huge wings resettling in an unconscious gesture he found reminiscent of a feline's tail twitching, restlessly.

"Do you know what is happening on the lower plane, Camael?"

The question appeared to surprise the angel, and Cas sighed inwardly. Curiosity was not a thing of angels, not usually. Friendship wasn't really either.

"To the humans, you mean?" Camael asked, one dark gold brow rising at the seraphim's nod.

"The settlements were overrun by the army controlled by the demon," he said briskly. "I believe they took some hostages and the prophet and the stone. The humans pursued them but failed to recover the prophet."

Cas felt his heart sink. "What happened?"

"The Grigori killed the hostages and escaped," Camael said, a faint crease marring the perfect brow. "The Winchesters did continue the pursuit, and have completed the first trial. I'm not sure how, but the demon king and the fallen with him were also killed. I believe they have retrieved the prophet and stone now."

"What about the creation forces?"

"One has been recaptured. The other is still free," Camael said shortly, his head tilted to one side as he heard the summons. "I have to leave, Castiel, I will send word soon."

Cas felt the soft rush of air past him as the archangel disappeared. Dean and Sam had been busy, he thought, a little flush of guilt at leaving them alone in their time of need spreading through him. He wondered which hostages had been taken and what effect had had on the brothers. Dean would regret any death on their behalf, he knew, but some would wound more deeply than others.

He turned his thoughts to what the archangel had said … and had not said.

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas. May 17, 2013.**_

The Impala crawled through the gates as people gathered around, Chuck's eyes screwing up tight as he tried to make out the narrow road through the sparks and spears of light that were blinding him. The migraine was heavy and thick in his head, every sound drilling into him, the light too bright, and his stomach clenching and spasming with every bump on the road.

"Chuck!" Rufus veered aside as the car hopped toward him. "Christ, stop!"

He reached the driver's door and yanked it open, stamping a foot on the brake and stalling the engine as Chuck toppled sideways into Sam, his eyes rolled back and showing only white.

"Get Merrin and Bob, now!" Rufus yelled at the crowd, looking back into the car's interior. Sam was out cold, leaning against the passenger door; in the back seat, Dean was also out, his face and arms criss-crossed by cuts and slashes and bruising rising in a rainbow of dark colours over all that Rufus could see of him. _What the fuck had happened to them?_

"Fred, open the passenger door, you and Franklin take Sam out and up to Ward Two," Merrin's cold, crisp voice said behind him and he turned, breathing a sigh of relief as she took complete control. "Vince, you and Peter get Dean out – carefully," she added as she saw the blood-soaked blanket pulled over him. She looked through the driver's door at the writer and nodded to herself.

"Elias, can you take Chuck up? He's out but it looks like one of his migraines, I can't see any other injuries. He can go into the office."

The auburn-haired hunter nodded and leaned past her, surprisingly gentle as he extracted Chuck from the seat and lifted him out, Nate behind him to take the prophet's feet and legs.

"I'll move the car," Rufus said to no one in particular as the three men were carried up to the keep and the crowd began to dissipate.

* * *

Bob lifted Dean's eyelid, the small penlight flashing across the eyes from side to side as he noted the pupil response. "He's deep," he said to Merrin. "I'll need some help with the exam."

"Sam's burning up," the nurse said abruptly, her brows drawn together. "I have to get back there, Marla's with him but he's presenting SV tach and I need to get his heart back to a steady rhythm."

"I can help," Zoe said from the doorway. "Candy striped through two years, I can do the dirty work."

"You're hired," Bob said wearily, nodding at Merrin as she left. "Get his feet, we'll cut everything off once he's on the table."

Zoe nodded, lifting as the doctor did, Dean moved from the gurney to the padded table in the one smooth action.

Bob's breath left his chest in a sharp exhale as he cut the shirt free and looked down at Dean's chest. "Christ, what happened?"

"Those are whip cuts," Elias said from behind him, straightening up from the doorway and walking to the table.

Cutting up the outside seam of the jeans, Zoe glanced over her shoulder at the hunter and back to the torn up chest. "The shoulder wound isn't."

"No," Bob said as he eased the dressing off. "That's an animal bite."

"He going to be alright, doc?" Elias asked.

Bob looked at him in surprise. He'd only been working with the hunters for a few months, but no matter what the injuries were, none of them ever seemed to feel that they were life-threatening.

"Yes, if we can keep him quiet, he'll recover."

"With the use of that arm?"

Bob turned to look down at the shoulder, suddenly understanding the man's concern. "I think so."

"You need help with anything?" Elias asked him, flicking a glance at Zoe.

"No, we'll manage," Bob said, seeing the glance. "Check with Merrin though, we're short-handed right now."

"Right."

He left the room and Bob turned to watch Zoe cut through the seam of the jeans over the hip. He saw the bloodied mess under the cloth and swallowed suddenly. "Zoe, get hot water and the antibacterial soap, gauze and cloths, would you?"

She stopped cutting and looked at him. "I'm almost finished –"

"I'll finish the cutting," he cut her off, gesturing sharp to the door. "And tell Merrin I need broad-spec antibiotics, an IV bag of morphine and another of D5 1/2NS, and her help in about five minutes."

"Sure," she said, turning for the door.

Merrin came in four minutes later, glanced past Bob to Dean and told Zoe to go and keep an eye on Chuck.

When the door had closed, she moved beside Bob, looking clinically over the unconscious body in front of her as she set up the bags and laid out the tray.

Bob glanced at her. "You don't look surprised."

"I worked in the Middle East for a few years," she said neutrally. "Saw a lot of this. How's the BP?"

"Not too bad," Bob said. "I don't think blood loss is the problem. I want to keep him out completely for a few days."

She smiled wryly. "I can tell you now that Dean has a very high threshold for pain, but we'll keep him under for a while."

Picking up the warm saline, she began to clean away the dried and crusted blood, working her way up from mid-thigh gently as Bob sluiced out the shoulder and looked at the collarbone.

* * *

_**May 22, 2013**_

_The darkness thinned out, little by little and he became aware of his surroundings, turning slowly as he looked around. The mountains towered along the horizon, peak after peak, grey and blue and purple, capped with snow and sheltering what remained of the city that nestled at the foot of the ranges. Familiarity tugged at him, but he could see only a handful of buildings in the thick woods that had grown up along the slopes of the foothills and none sparked a positive identification. Behind him, the sun was rising and a wide plain stretched out, tall grass bowing and shivering in the vagrant breeze. He looked at the north eastern sky, brows drawing together as he saw a black line along the edge, growing wider and deeper as he watched … _

… _the noise registered slowly, a deep thud-thud and he looked around, searching for the source, feeling the sound through the soles of his boots, in the marrow of his bones. Marching, he thought suddenly. That was the sound of thousands of feet, marching in unison. An army. He looked at the mountains and back to the plain, unable to see anything but the fields and woods, and the clouds, getting closer, casting a dark shadow over the land beneath them … _

… _he staggered back as a man appeared in front of him, tall and narrow-shouldered, a long black coat cut with a wide skirt that swung around as he turned. White-blond hair swirled out with the motion, gathered at the nape of the man's neck and pale grey eyes, so pale he thought at first the irises weren't there, staring at him coldly. The man laughed and raised a short-handled whip, dozens of thongs curling and twisting as he drew it back and Dean leapt backward as they whistled toward him, not far enough, the pain of the hardened and knotted ends cutting into his bare skin. He looked down, seeing the red lines patterned over him and felt a black rage filling him … _

… _he was kneeling, his knees stabbed by the sharp-pointed gravel, trying not to see the sightless stare, eyeballs coated thinly in dust that hid the colour of the irises, trying not to believe what he'd known when the first shot had cracked through the air, he jerked backward as the eyes blinked, the dust washed out by tears, unable to bear the sight, unable to just drop her onto the gravel, a shiver reaching right through him, his hands shaking as she kept blinking, and her eyes focussed on him … _

… _the vampire leaned over him, mouth bright red against the ebony skin, his blood, he knew, dripping back down onto him – _do you want to live?_ – he shook his head, feeling his strength ebbing out of him as the head dipped and pain screeched through him, blood pulled from the artery, his heart beating faster – _do you want to live?_ – he screamed, the sound ripping through his throat and mind and soul as he drove the blade through the vampire's neck and wrenched at it, severing the head, cold blood pouring over him, filling his eyes as he pushed the body off him …_

… _the pain wasn't stopping and he stumbled forward, the fallen angel lifting a knife and bringing it down, over and over into the swollen abdomen of the woman lying in front of him, single blue-grey turning to him and the misshapen mouth hissing – _does it hurt now? Can you feel it, Winchester?_ And it did, writhing through him, clawing and biting and gnawing, too much pain and no overload – was he dead? – he lifted the gun and pulled the trigger – _stop! Stop it! I don't want to feel! I don't want to feel anything! Ever!

Dean snapped awake, the painkiller flowing through his bloodstream unable to keep him under through the pain that riddled his body, unable to keep the dreams locked up. He dragged in a deep breath, freezing into immobility as a biting wave of acid flooded through him, the blood draining from his face, leaving the bruises standing out like rotten blooms, mottling his skin.

"Dean," a high, gentle voice beside him and warmth around his hand, enclosed in two others, smaller, holding his tightly.

The pain ebbed away gradually and he opened his eyes, narrowing them again immediately at the too-bright light. A soft bed under him, though it didn't stop the fierce jabs and bites and grinding ache in his back; soft sheets pulled over him, but still he could feel the smooth fabric catching on his skin, on the scabs and stitches and dressings, tearing at him. He let his eyes open a little wider as they adjusted to the light, seeing a vaguely-familiar face beside him, warm café-au-lait skin and dark brown eyes, looking at him, worried now.

"Zoe?" he asked, his voice unrecognisable through a throat of glass and sand and shrapnel. His mouth and tongue were coated in something dead, he thought, swallowing painfully as his stomach rolled.

"Don't talk," she said, squeezing his hand and releasing it gently, turning to the nightstand to get a glass of water with a straw. He felt the scabs over his face pull at his skin as he tried to frown at the incongruity of the gesture.

"Just drink a little at a time," she instructed him, holding the straw next to his mouth, guiding it in. "You've been out for a few days and on some pretty serious painkillers."

The water was ice-cold and he felt his tongue and mouth and throat swelling with it, the taste washed away, the nausea subsiding a little.

"Do you have a lot of pain?" she asked when he pulled back from the straw. "You shouldn't even be awake yet."

"Wh-at ha-ppened?" he croaked at her, wincing as an incautious attempt to move pulled at … everything.

"You don't remember?"

He felt her take his hand in hers again and his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at her, the gesture too personal, the indecisiveness of her answer bringing irritation.

"Get … the … doc," he managed to grate out, his eyes darkening with the rancid bite of pain in his shoulder as he pulled his hand away.

"Dean, it's alright," she said, looking down at his hand. "It's going to be okay."

The words stirred a tenuous memory and he felt a doubling sensation, reliving a mixture of relief and confusion, of longing and doubt. It flickered briefly in his mind and faded away, too amorphous to keep hold of.

Closing his eyes, he braced himself and cleared his throat, turning cautiously to look back at her. "Get the doc," he told her again, his voice more like he remembered and the warning in it clear.

She hesitated, then nodded, getting up and going to the door and he tried to relax the tension that had knotted up in his shoulder, sending flashes of pain down through his chest and up into his neck.

Bob Malley walked in a minute later, looking at the sweat that sheened his patient's face. Zoe came in behind and walked around the bed to pick up a soft cloth, leaning over to wipe it away. Bob saw Dean jerk away, face screwing up with the pain the movement caused and he caught Zoe's hand.

"Leave it," he told her. "See if Merrin needs a hand with anything, please."

She dropped the cloth back in the basin of water and walked out with a stiff-backed rigidity that was apparent to both men.

"What the hell …?" Dean said, looking at Malley.

"She's been a little … protective … of you, since Chuck got you back," Bob said apologetically, closing the door and dragging a chair to the bedside.

Dean digested that in silence. He didn't know what to make of it.

"Pain's pretty bad?" the doctor asked, leaning toward the IV and adjusting the flow slightly.

"You could say that," Dean grunted. "How long have I been here?"

"Four days."

"What?"

Bob turned at the shock in his voice and smiled. "You were worked over pretty hard, Dean. Between that and whatever got your shoulder, you're lucky to be here at all."

Memories surfaced and he turned away from them. He'd need more time before he could look at them without the associated physical sensations rising as well.

"Where's Sam?"

"Sam's fine, he's at the order," Bob said, walking around the bed and wringing out the cloth, wiping Dean's face and neck clinically as he looked carefully at the cuts and bruising. "The burning sensations have been recurring, but he says that the effects are diminishing now."

_And that was pure bullshit_, Dean thought, eyes half-closing as Malley drew back the covers gently and he felt the cooler air brush over his skin.

"Couldn't do much about modesty, I'm afraid," Bob said prosaically. "Too much damage all over and I didn't want anything to rub."

"What about his heart?" Dean ignored the doctor's scrutiny of his wounds and focussed on his brother.

"It's fine," Bob said, lifting the dressing over the bullet wound and looking at it closely. "You really are a fast healer."

"What do you think is causing the – uh, temperature fluctuations in Sam?" Dean pressed.

"Temperature fluctuations? That's one way to put it, I suppose," Bob said, drawing the covers back up with a dry smile. "Sam thinks that the contract with God is burning the demon blood out of him."

Dean blinked.

"He told you?"

"Told me as much as I needed to know," Bob confirmed with a slight shrug. "What's happening to him isn't anywhere on the scale of normal. Father Emilio and I agreed that given the circumstances, he'd be better off at the order, with those who understand what's happening to him taking care of him."

"But he's okay?"

"No," Bob shook his head. "No more than you are. He's alive and I believe that he'll survive. He's in enormous pain when it happens, and I've given them some medications to help with that, although I think he's doing better on what Oliver has made up for him."

He sat down again, gesturing to Dean's shoulder. "You, on the other hand, are going to lose the use of your right arm unless you give it the time to heal properly."

Dean looked at him, chewing on the corner of his lower lip as he weighed the likelihood of Malley being right.

Seeing his doubt, Bob clarified. "It was a devil of a job to get the collarbone realigned, Dean. You were hung by your wrists?" He paused as Dean nodded unwillingly. "It pulled everything out. I'm not a hundred percent sure it's all back correctly, but I can't do anything else with it until the ends rejoin. Then we can see if it's straight and if not, rebreak and reset it."

"Collarbone – even a crooked one – isn't going to fuck up my arm, doc," Dean told him acerbically.

"No," Malley agreed. "But the muscles behind and around your shoulder were repeatedly torn and pulled apart. They are not going to heal up right unless they have enough rest. There's no infection, but to be honest, I've never seen such a mess. I've drawn everything back together as much as possible, and you're still pretty young, young enough to heal well, if you give it a chance."

Dean looked away. "Might not be up to me."

"It'll have to be up to you – or you better start learning to do everything with your left hand."

"How long?"

"A few weeks," Bob told him, getting to his feet and looking at the drip. "Are you feeling more comfortable?"

"No." Dean scowled at the wall, thinking of what could happen in a few weeks without him around. "Yeah," he added, seeing the doctor's expression. "I'm – uh, hungry."

"Good," Bob said. "I'll get someone to bring something up."

* * *

_**May 24, 2013**_

What we do here is rewire the mind_, Alastair said conversationally to Dean as he stood beside the demon and they both looked at the man stretched out on the rack in front of them. _For some, the boundary between pain and pleasure is thin to begin with. For others, it takes longer_. He felt the demon's speculative gaze on him and kept his gaze fixed on the victim_.

The memory surfaced in conjunction with the deep ache of his body. The swelling had gone down, mostly. He was black and blue from shoulders to thighs, front and back, and nothing worked particularly well. The drip was gone, the pleasant, floating feeling too addictive psychologically, never mind physically. He wanted to be able to think, needed to be able to think. Needed to be able to shut down some thoughts as well.

Looking out through the deep, narrow embrasure at the cloudless sky he could see, Dean realised that the memory hadn't frightened him, hadn't brought with it the old fluxing wash of pain and shame and guilt. _The only thing you did was try to stop the pain_.

Maybe she'd been right, he thought, the inward flinch at the memory of her voice, her words, familiar and fleeting. In the Grigori's half-frozen face, he'd seen enjoyment, pleasure, mingled with the rage, with the frustration that had been taken out on him. He'd thought … he'd felt … for a long time, that he'd felt that too, but seeing it in someone else, he realised that wasn't the truth. Not the whole truth, at least. _You're not a monster, Dean. You never have been. If you'd truly enjoyed it, why would you feel so ashamed by what you did now?_

He closed his eyes, wishing suddenly for the detached and uncaring relief of the morphine, the bright, sharp yearning that filled him hurting worse than anything he felt physically, bringing the memories that tore through him more agonisingly than those he had of Hell.

The door opened and he registered the sound, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he forced it all away, eyelids screwed tight with effort of pushing it all back down where he couldn't feel it, where it couldn't keep aching.

"Bacon today," Zoe's voice was cheerful and high. "Eggs, too."

Pulling in a deep breath, ignoring the various stabs and bolts of pain the movement brought, he opened his eyes and tried to look enthusiastic.

"Thanks."

She set the tray on the bed, picking up the cutlery and starting to cut up the food. Malley had taped and strapped the right shoulder down firmly, his arm held in a sling to keep movement to a bare minimum. He could feed himself if the pieces were small enough to get into his mouth.

"You want some help?" she asked him, handing him the fork. He shook his head as he stabbed a piece of bacon, driving the tines through a cut-up section of egg and toast as well.

She made him uneasy, he realised, keeping his gaze on the food and aware of her watching him eat. Anyone would have made him uncomfortable in this situation, but he felt her constant attention on him, and there was something else, something that he couldn't get to come to the surface, some memory just out of reach.

After a couple of mouthfuls, he looked up at her. "Why aren't you working with the others?"

She knew what he meant. She was a hunter, in training, but nonetheless, a hunter.

"Merrin's got a full ward and all her nurses are spread around the county, checking on the pregnancies," she told him, getting up as she registered the faint but underlying hostility. She walked around the room, a little aimlessly, straightening the covers, refilling the water jug on the nightstand. "She needed someone to help out with you because Rudy and Adam are still under full time care as well."

He accepted the explanation with reservations, looking back at the plate to stab more food. "Yeah, well, you can tell her that I'm okay to look after myself now."

Zoe turned to look at him, pushing back her thick, dark hair. "You're not, you know," she said softly, coming back to the bedside. "You need someone to look after you."

Debating the advisability of opening this can of worms, he hesitated and stared at the plate beside him. She sat on the bed, leaning over and his gaze snapped up as her hand brushed down his cheek.

"What's going on?" he asked, pulling back from the touch sharply, the fork clattering loudly on the china as he dropped it.

"You don't remember?" she asked, smiling a little. "You were pretty out of it, but you–"

The door opened and Father Emilio looked in. Dean saw him take in the situation and felt a wash of relief when the Jesuit stepped into the room and Zoe shifted back on the bed, away from him.

"Sorry," Father Emilio said, his expression neutral. "I can come back later if you are busy?"

"No," Dean said quickly, glancing down and picking up the fork, stabbing the last few pieces of food together and stuffing the load into his mouth as he put the fork back on the plate. He tucked the food into his cheek and looked back at the priest. "Now's good."

He heard the impatient huff from the woman beside him as she picked up the plate and fork and got off the bed. _Out of it_, he thought distractedly. When had he been out of it? He sighed inwardly. The last few weeks, quite a few times.

The priest opened the door wide and stood aside to let Zoe leave, then turned and closed the door behind her. He glanced back at Dean.

"How are you feeling?"

Dean swallowed the mouthful and inched himself toward the glass on the nightstand. "Not great. You got any info on what's going on?"

"Plenty," Father Emilio said, walking around the bed and picking up the glass to hand to him. "Not all good, you understand."

"Thrill me."

"Oliver has extracted a sufficient quantity of Cerberus' blood from your clothes and Sam's to provide entry and exit to Hell," Father Emilio said, dragging the chair across and sitting down.

"Okay, good," Dean said, wondering what the Jesuit was reluctant to talk about. "How's Sam? What about the … attacks, or whatever they are?"

"They are still going on, not as frequently now," the priest said. "He is having difficulty sleeping. And eating."

Dean's brows drew together. "But he's getting some, right?"

"Some," Father Emilio agreed reservedly. "He believes that he is being purged of the blood."

Dean looked at him, wondering how many people Sam'd told. "Yeah, but that – uh – that's a good thing, isn't it?"

For a moment, Father Emilio didn't answer, and Dean felt his stomach drop, the food in it uncomfortably heavy.

"Yes," the Jesuit said, firmly. "Yes, I believe it to be a good thing."

"Alright." Dean watched him, realising he didn't know want to know anything else. "What about Chuck?"

"Chuck had another vision," Father Emilio told him. "This one we cannot place."

"What do you mean?"

"It was fragmented, like the visions he had of you in Hell," Emilio said carefully. "Not a progression, but a series of images, of scenes."

"Describing what?"

"He saw an army –"

"Christ, not another one," Dean groaned, turning away. "Come on!"

The Jesuit's mouth twisted up to one side wryly. "This army was on a vast plain, the mountains behind them –"

Dean blinked at the familiarity of that image, losing the next few words as the priest kept talking.

"– then he saw a lake, he said, of lava or magma, filling an enormous stone cavern, and an entity that was shrouded in black cloth," Father Emilio continued, not noticing Dean's withdrawal. "We believe that the third trial will be to kill an archdemon."

"Kill an archdemon," Dean repeated slowly. "With what?"

"Lucifer's sword."

"That Sam has to get out of the cage?"

"Yes."

"Peachy."

The Jesuit snorted softly. "There's more."

"Naturally," Dean agreed, resignation filling his voice. "There's always more."

"There is a possibility that the conspiracy in Heaven was not stopped with Raphael's death," Father Emilio said.

"Yeah, well, figured that since Cas hasn't been back," Dean said quietly.

"Dean, I would like your permission to take the notes Alex left in your home," Father Emilio asked, watching the hunter's face. "She was very thorough in her analysis and there may be more she saw that she didn't have a chance to tell us."

_Take her notes_, the words dropped into him. He felt anger stirring, far down, at the idea.

"Sure, get what you need," he said, forcing himself to keep that anger where it was, looking away.

"I'm sorry," Father Emilio said. "We need all the information we can find."

Dean shook his head slightly. "It's alright," he said brusquely, pushing aside the images that came to him of the priest going through the apartment, looking, touching, removing. "I don't –"

He stopped, uncertain of what he'd about to say.

The Jesuit looked at him, his face expressionless but a deeper understanding in the dark brown eyes. "You're not ready to let go, that's understandable."

Dean looked him unwillingly. "I don't think that's it."

"What do you think it is?"

"I don't know," he said, the doubt that lurked behind everything darkening his eyes.

"Perhaps, for now, you can't afford the distraction of grief?" Father Emilio suggested diffidently.

"Yeah, maybe."

He didn't know if that was it. He couldn't look at any of it without the rage coming back. "I thought, uh, when I killed them, it would go."

The Jesuit studied him carefully. "Avenging her?"

"Yeah."

"But it hasn't?" the priest asked, coming to understand a little more of the enigmatic man lying in the bed beside him. "The anger is still there?"

"Yeah."

The silence stretched out between them, Father Emilio watching Dean withdraw again, his face shuttered and his gaze dropping. He thought of what he knew of the man, what he'd been told, what he'd seen for himself, what Sam had told him.

"The pain of betrayal wounds the soul, Dean," he said softly. "It cannot be understood and therefore takes the longest to heal."

He drew in a deep breath, getting to his feet. "You made a deal and you thought things would be safe, she would be safe, but nothing is safe, not forever, not guaranteed. Perhaps that is why the anger remains?"

Dean heard him leave the room, the door closing behind him with a soft click. He didn't think that was it, either. It didn't matter, not really, he realised tiredly. The job was still there, the sons of bitches who'd brought it all on, still there. He thought he'd be the one, but it was going to be Sam, and all that was left for him to do was to make sure, make certain, that his brother got the chance to finish what he'd started, whether it killed him or not.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

In the quiet of the library, Jerome winced as he drew in a deep breath, resettling his glasses on his nose. The wound would take a long time to heal, he thought, a little annoyed at the inconvenience of it. He could barely remember now how grateful he'd been that he'd woken up at all.

Katherine cleared her throat, on the other side and down the table a few chairs, looking up at Baraquiel.

"When Lucifer fell, his army had been defeated," she said without preamble, the Qaddiysh turning belatedly to her as he realised she was addressing him. He nodded.

"His … lieutenants were shorn of their wings and fell into the abyss with him?" she continued, her gaze sharpening as she saw she had his attention. "But the rest, those surviving angels who were not cast down – what happened to them?"

"Those who did not desert before the end were taken back to Heaven," Baraquiel told her mildly. "They served their penance and made atonement under the watch of Raguel."

Jasper frowned. "The archangel?"

Baraquiel nodded. "Raguel is second in command of the Host, his purview is order and justice, for angel and human."

"Alright," Katherine said, looking back at the typed pages of the demonologies in front of her. "But none were demonified, as the archdemons were?"

"No," Baraquiel said, frowning as he tried to follow her thoughts. "What have you found?"

"There is a reference here to an angel who became a demon, and an angel who controls demons," she said, her voice a little acerbic. "It's not clear who it's referring to and I was wondering if the –"

"The angel who became a demon was Azazel," Baraquiel interrupted gently. "He Fell with us, at God's request, to teach humanity. He – he lost his child, sometime after we'd settled in the south. It changed him. He went to the Grigori, and he never returned. He orchestrated a massacre, a great wave of deaths in the north and opened a gate, and Lucifer demanded that he be sent to Hell rather than killed outright. God agreed."

"And the angel who controls demons?" Jasper asked, elbow on the table and chin cupped in his hand.

"Kokabiel," Penemue said, walking out between the stacks with an armful of books. "You met him in Jordan, Jasper."

A flash of an older face, perfectly sculpted but etched with aeons of experience, and knowledge in the long, narrow amber eyes, filled the scholar's mind and he nodded.

"Kokabiel was the liaison between Heaven and Hell, in the old days," Baraquiel said, the colloquialism coming easily. "He controlled two hundred and fifty seven thousand demons, could call on them, direct them with his will to undertake work for Heaven as it was required."

Elena's brows shot up. "What would Heaven need with demons?"

Penemue sat down at the table between her and Peter, his face creasing in a dry smile. "Our Father's wrath would be expressed, from time to time, against the primitive impulses of mankind. Sometimes sending a horde of demons was more effective than using the angels."

"What is the reference, Katherine?" Baraquiel asked.

"I'm not sure what to make of it, to be frank," she said, looking at the page. "It seems to be a prophecy of some kind, but not one written by a human – this is included in the history of Hell."

"Even demons have their seers," Penemue said, shrugging slightly. "Most of the so-called prophecies originating in Hell were Lucifer's, not so much prophecy as wishful thinking."

"What does it say?" Baraquiel threw a quelling look at the dark-haired _Irin_.

"_In the times of the last days, in the times of the end of our time in the acid and flame, the angels will call and we will rise again, to march out of the abyss against human and angel, to the Last Battle, and we will be legion, led by the Faithless and given power over the living and the dead_."

She looked at him. "Faithless?"

Baraquiel shook his head. "It is what the demons call the Grigori –"

"What the archdemons called the Grigori," Penemue corrected him. "Betrayers and traitors of Lucifer."

"This refers to the time that humanity will no longer have need of Heaven and Hell?" Jasper looked at them. "When the gates were supposed to be closed because of that?"

Penemue nodded. "The Last Battle – there is a vaguely similar story in Heaven, of the angels descending to meet the demons in a war. It was written into the history more or less as a footnote as there didn't seem to be that much purpose for such a war. It was always thought that the Penitent would be human."

"A diversion, perhaps?" Peter looked at him. "Surely the demons wouldn't be standing still while the gates were closed on them forever?"

"Perhaps," Penemue said with a shrug.

"What does it mean – power over the living and the dead?" Jerome looked down the table at him.

"I don't know," Baraquiel answered, his gaze flicking sideways to his brother.

At the end of the table, Father Emilio looked at Father McConnaughey, one brow raised. Chuck's vision of the army was beginning to make more sense.

"Baraquiel, perhaps you could explain simply the structure of Heaven?" Father Emilio asked, forestalling what he knew the older priest wanted to ask.

"The structure?" Baraquiel turned to him, one brow raised quizzically. "You know the structure, Emilio."

"Humour me," the Jesuit said, dark eyes holding a faint amusement. "We have seen the deaths of Uriel and Raphael, but there were seven archangels in Heaven, and each had their task – what now do they do?"

"The seven," Baraquiel said slowly, looking at Penemue for a moment then back to the priest. "They were Michael and Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael, Raguel, Sariel and Camael."

"Michael commands the Host, he leads the seraphim, oldest of the seven," Penemue said. "Gabriel is the angel of vengeance, the weapon of God and the guardian of the planes. Raphael was the teacher, once. Uriel was second in command to Gabriel, as Raguel is to Michael. Sariel –" he stopped, looking down at the table.

"Sariel Fell, with us," Baraquiel said. "He is in Jordan, mortal now."

"And Camael?"

"Camael took over the role of Voice and Scribe, when Metatron fled," Penemue said. "He spoke to God, passed on his instructions, kept the histories, and the library."

"So there are only four left?" Katherine looked at the Qaddiysh, wondering how important that was and why the Jesuit had felt it necessary to bring that out.

"Yes."

"Chuck saw an army of demons, marching east," Father McConnaughey said, looking at them. "Is there a chance that the army in the vision is the army that Katherine has mentioned?"

"There is a chance," Penemue said, turning to him. "But Crowley is dead, and the archdemons have been loosed from whatever spell he used to bind them. It is not the time for them, for the end –"

"But it is," Father McConnaughey said, leaning forward. "The messenger was clear on that, the gates had to be closed before the archdemons could get free – what if this is why? To prevent them from raising an army to finish what Heaven seems to have set in motion?"

"We haven't found a way to close the gates without closing Hell itself," Jerome interjected thoughtfully. "It must be on the tablet, somewhere, but Chuck hasn't come across it yet. And it provides sufficient motivation to bring a war to this plane, doesn't it?"

* * *

Father Emilio leaned against the desk, looking down at his friend. Father McConnaughey was flicking through the books the order possessed on Heaven, the angelologies and non-canonical texts, the piles divided to either side of him into those he'd been through and those he hadn't.

"Did Jerome send the request to the other chapters?" Father McConnaughey asked without looking up, the pages rustling as he turned them quickly.

The Jesuit nodded tiredly. He would have to sleep soon, but before that he wanted to speak to Sam. "Yes, they're all looking for any reference to the demon's prophecy or to any mention of an army of demons."

"You believe we're being manipulated," the older priest said quietly, flicking over the pages as he scanned the few pictures that had been painted and drawn of some of the seraphim who'd been seen on this plane.

"I am afraid that is the explanation," Father Emilio admitted. "The disappearance of the Winchesters' angel friend – the timing of everything that has happened in the past three months, Sean, there are no coincidences, this you know too well."

"I saw an angel," the priest said stubbornly. "I do realise that under the circumstances my faith was renewed in that moment, but still, Emilio, it was an angel."

"And as we have seen, and heard, and read, that does not preclude mischief or evil or wrong-doing," the Jesuit argued mildly.

The soft flicking of pages ceased as the Irish priest stared down at the book in front of him. "That's him," he breathed, his finger resting lightly beside a reproduction of an oil painting on the page.

Father Emilio walked around the desk, leaning over to look at the painting.

The artist had captured the subject well, on a hilltop with a darkening sky behind him, great rose-tinted grey wings stretched out to either side of the tall form, long, pale, wheaten gold hair streaming out. The angel wore robes of white, belted at the waist with a golden cord and a short, bright blade hanging from the knots. Looking down at the caption, the priest read – _Camael, delivering God's judgement on Gomorrah_.

"That's the messenger you saw?"

"Yes," Father McConnaughey nodded, staring at the picture worriedly. "Why would an archangel come to help an old man and less than a hundred survivors?"

He looked up at Father Emilio. "Why would he tell me about the gates?"

The Jesuit shook his head. "I don't know, Sean."

* * *

_**Strawberry Peak, Utah**_

Mid-May and still the wind that whistled down from the peaks to the north and teased among the valleys, was cold enough to chill lager on an outdoor table, Harrer thought as he walked up the flagged path toward the main building, pulling the collar of his coat higher around his ears.

Alongside the path, yellow and blue, purple, white and pale pink wildflowers were blooming, pushing through the soil and competing with the short grass. The Grigori ignored the shy display, climbing the short, wide flight of steps to the building's deep porch and pushing through the front doors. Shedding his heavy coat in the warmth of the big hall, Harrer quickened his pace as he walked through the wide doorway into what had been a restaurant and bar, before the virus had wiped out clientele and management in a cleansing sweep. Now the room, with its high cathedral ceiling and elegantly long, modern chandeliers, walls panelled in a warm, golden timber and polished parquetry hardwood floor, held several long tables, a half-dozen clusters of plush, comfortable club sofas and armchairs with occasional tables nestling beside them, and the curving polished oak bar, with its Native American artwork of running horses behind it, was the only reminder of its past.

"Karl, we've been waiting."

Harrer nodded apologetically to the man standing in front of the huge stone hearth, taking a proffered glass of brandy from a chained woman waiting with the tray and sitting down in an empty chair.

"There was a problem with the secondary set of generators," he said, by way of explanation as he sipped the fragrant liquid, his gaze almost, but not quite, meeting the almost-white eyes watching him. "Some fool didn't lag the pipes correctly and they froze last night."

The man standing by the fire blinked slowly at him. Tall and wide-shouldered, with long, white-blonde hair that framed a thin, pale face, the contrast with the immaculately-tailored black silk suit he wore was startling, as if he were a ghost or a being that didn't belong in the real world of colour. The thin-lipped mouth drew back in a reptilian smile as he nodded and turned away, and Harrer felt the tension in his neck and chest ease slightly.

In theory, they were all brothers, all equals, deserters from the dream of the Morning Star, valuing their necks above loyalty, above honour and principle, but the reality, of course, was that there was no equality between them, no bond that gave any immunity from any other. And none of them would make an enemy of Zekeial, known for the last eighty years as Julius Lehmann, their de facto leader through wars and prosperity. Not if it could be avoided.

"Eric and Dietrich are gone," Julius said, looking at the five sitting around him. "They underestimated their adversary and overestimated their ally." He turned to the man seated to his right. "Peyotr, could you give us a brief summation?"

The dark-haired Grigori rose awkwardly from the overstuffed chair, holding a clipboard with a thick sheaf of papers fastened to it. He had taken over the body of the Russian Bolshevik in 1915, and he still found the too-wide shoulders and too-broad chest to be a monumental irritation when it came to moving around.

"We also lost Hubertus, Ariana and Joaquin in the attack on the demon's quarters in Massachusetts," he began, deep voice thickly accented, eyes skimming down his notes. "The boy did not know the details of what had happened, unfortunately, he left as soon as he perceived that he could not feel Hubertus in the house or on this plane any longer. He did not feel the half-breed's death, however, and it seems likely that the men have imprisoned him in the mirror, which Eric and Dietrich had in their possession." He flicked a glance around the others. "These losses, combined with the loss of Raphael, means that our plans will be set back by at least two months."

"Why did we not receive –?" Haushofer leaned forward on the long sofa.

"Questions later, Karl," Lehmann said coolly, and Haushofer sat back, dropping his gaze.

"The death of Crowley released the Three," Peyotr continued. "Hell is closed to us as a resource and as a means to begin the Second War. And since the men now have both prophet and Word, we will have to press our brethren on the Divine plane that much harder. There is now only one way we can gain control of sufficient numbers of demons to prevent the closing of the gates and regain the tablet."

Glancing at Julius, Peyotr hesitated. "With the dead, we have vessels for less than six thousand at this time," he said slowly. "We need the boy to find more, at least another four before we will be able ensure a resounding victory over the humans, enough to force Michael into leading the Host down here."

Julius stared at him consideringly. "Send the boy and the next youngest, the girl. How many can they bring back to us?"

"Any number," Peyotr said, relief evident in his face. "The boy has mastered his gifts."

"Before you send him out, I want that mirror."

"We cannot reverse the spell –" Peyotr began, and Lehmann waved his hand impatiently, cutting him off.

"No, not yet," he said sharply. "But we will. And I want it here."

"Of course," Peyotr agreed stiffly, looking down at his notes. "The problem of reacquiring the tablet, and the prophet to translate it, remains. Another siege situation will reduce our numbers much faster than theirs and it is not to our advantage to slaughter the small populations we have left."

"No," Julius agreed readily. "No, we will leave that task to our reluctant guest."

"The binding spell is not complete," Gottfried warned him. "We need to wait for the births –"

"We have enough time for that," Julius said confidently. "We have sufficient women for the ritual?"

"Yes, now we have nine," Gottfried confirmed. "The blood we're drawing will keep him sustained until it's time."

"And the gun, Julius?" Harrer said, glancing at the others. "It killed Eric and Dietrich, killed the king of the accursed plane and the nephilim – it will kill the cambion as easily. What are we doing about that?"

"The demon underestimated the men involved," Julius said, turning to look at Harrer absently "As did our brothers. That was a mistake that we will not make."

"What information do we have on them?" Gottfried asked, leaning back in the corner of the sofa. "The lines of Araquiel and Azazel were not the primaries, at least not for the lines. Only for Michael and Lucifer. And even then, only as their vessels."

"We are waiting for that information," Peyotr told him. "The current Scribe does not have it."

"What makes you think that it even exists? Metatron may not have written it down," Haushofer said, staring at him. "He took the tablets to the Qaddiysh – they will be easier to break!"

"It will be written down and the prophet will be able to read it," Julius said quellingly. "Patience, Karl. We have waited a long time for these times; we are not going to act without due consideration and lose sight of the end now."

* * *

Jesse stood close to the girl who was only three years his senior. Feeling his nervousness, Sabrine slipped her arm around him, ducking her head to whisper a reassurance in his ear as they listened to Felice's instructions. Returning to the house was not something he wanted to do. He was relieved when the older cambion woman told him he would go with the girl beside him.

"You must find every single piece, Jesse," Felice said carefully, leaning over a little to look into his eyes. "We can restore the mirror, but only if every piece is there. Bring it here and then you and Sabrine will have another task."

There was nothing but their own care to prevent either of them from being drawn into the enchanted glass themselves. He swallowed slightly and nodded, feeling the girl's hand curl around his. A faint pop as the air rushed to fill the spaces they'd been, stirring the edge of the curtains of the room, was the only sound to mark their departure.

* * *

The basement was long and narrow and frigidly cold, stone and metal and damp rising from the bedrock beneath the foundations. To one side, iron bars were set into the ceilings and floors, each as thick as a man's wrist, spelled and engraved with sigils of binding, of deflection and death, dividing the length of the room into small, square cells on one side. In the cell at the far end, the creature stood, chained from ankle to neck, the bright metal links wound through with hawthorn and vervain, binding him to the stone pillar that supported the floors above. Behind him, on a high gantry, the body dripped its blood down a plastic tube that terminated in his neck. Dark skin gleaming slightly in the dim light, pale, golden eyes unblinking as he watched the line of women walk past. Their chains clanked on the stone floor as they shuffled along, not quite well fed enough for both mother and the children they carried, bellies distended, growing every day, he thought.

He'd heard of the spell, centuries ago, in what had been a wilderness of ice and wind, a long way to the north and west of this continent. An abomination of black magic, of sacrifice and a perversion of the forces that had created all life. It would bind him, he knew, in invisible chains that he would never escape, tied by a blood bond that even his dark Mother would not be able to sever. For the moment, they were only feeding him the women's blood and he could feel his strength returning, the effects of the herbs and silver and lifeless blood diminishing in power a little more each day. He would not have a particularly wide window to work with. And so far, there had been no opportunity to use the powers that he was not known for.

The unfamiliar face caught his attention and he stared at the woman, her head bowed as she moved with the others. They had made the nine finally, he realised, his face expressionless as he watched her walk down to the table where the blood was drawn for him. No more time now, no more than a month or two at most. Six men had been brought to the cell, barely half-conscious as the sorcerer had cut open the vein in his wrist and held it above their open mouths. He wasn't sure where they'd been taken, but he would have to find them and take them with him when he went.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

_Take a deep breath, Sammy, we're going down to the bottom, find the treasure, Dean said, grinning at him, dark hair seal-slicked with the salt water, nose red and peeling from the endless sunshine that summer in Jersey and then he'd disappeared, under the water's surface, dragging Sam with him, down into the cool jade-green depths. He'd belatedly snatched a mouthful of air before he was pulled under, it's Sam! Sam! _Sam!_ pounding through his head as he felt his lungs begin to ache, his eyes stinging when he opened them, seeing his brother head down and reaching for the smooth, sandy seabed. Dean! It's Sam! Dean, I can't breathe!_

_The hand locked around his wrist changed and he looked down, a bony claw curled around his arm now and a blackened skull twisted back to look at him, exposed jaws in a gruesome grin, a crab swimming out of the empty eye sockets. Got a deep breath, Sammy? We're going down, all the way to the Cage!_

_Sam opened his mouth to scream, and the water rushed in, filling his mouth and throat, filling his lungs, it's Sam_! Sam!_ ricocheting around his mind as darkness wrapped around him and consciousness fled._

"Sam!"

He sat up, arm swinging out at the touch on his skin, eyes wide and staring.

"Sam, it's okay, just a dream," Marla said from beside the bed. "You're awake now."

His heart was jackhammering against his ribs, hands and feet prickling and burning, the skin dry and reddened, the heat reaching up over his wrists and forearms, up his ankles and into his calves.

"Water," he grunted, looking around the shadowy room wildly. Marla picked up the bottle sitting on the nightstand and thrust it into his hand, and he lifted it, tipping his head back and swallowing the cold liquid in great, desperate gulps. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes not. The burning flickered and faded, receding slowly as he finished the bottle, leaving a residue of sweat over his skin where it had been.

"Thanks," he said, handing her the empty bottle and leaning back against the bedhead, both hands sweeping upward over his face and into his hair. The dream had started as a memory, the summer they'd spent on the Jersey shore while their father had been laid with injuries. Dean teaching him to swim because it'd been so hot there was nothing else they could do. What it'd turned into … he wasn't so sure about that. The voice of the skull had sounded like Lucifer.

Marla handed him a towel, cool and moist and he took it gratefully, wiping his neck and face, eyes closing at the relief of the damp cloth against his skin.

"Are you hungry?" she asked him, and he opened his eyes to look at her, shaking his head.

"No," he said, a little tersely. "Maybe later."

He'd been here for five days, he thought, and rest was doing nothing for him. He hadn't eaten in the last two days, since the last meal had somehow turned to carrion in his mouth while he'd been chewing. He'd slept perhaps five hours over the time, waking from dreams that seemed to follow the consistent pattern, starting out as memories, good memories, and turn into something else.

"How's Chuck doing?" he asked, pushing the covers back and swinging his legs off the bed.

"That's what I came up to tell you, he's found more details about the gates," she said, standing as he did, her eyes dark with worry. "Sam, you should try to rest –"

"I've been resting, Marla," he said, his tone softening as he looked down at her. "It's not doing any good – and I might as well be doing something useful."

She'd been there with him, looking after him, and he couldn't pretend that wasn't a relief, a soothing balm against the pain that wormed through him almost constantly since he'd read the spell. In the stillness of the night, her hands had held his, and her voice, warm and gentle, had kept him tethered to the real world, letting him break free of the visions and nightmares that were haunting him whether he was asleep or awake. It had been a long time – a very long time – since someone had looked at him the way she did, not seeing the vessel of Lucifer, or the man with the demon blood, but just the man. It had been a long time since anyone had offered comfort and peace.

He offered her a rueful, one-sided grin and turned away, reaching for his jeans and pulling them on quickly. He couldn't let the tentative feelings go any further. He'd made a contract with God, and he wouldn't be coming back. There wouldn't be an afterward.

"What in particular about the gates?"

Matching the matter-of-fact shift in his tone, she walked to the door of the room, leaning against the frame as she waited for him. "Jerome says that Chuck has found the locations."

He saw her smile as his head snapped up to look at her. "Seriously?"

She nodded. "There are ten on this continent and another thirty around the world. The locations are specific – apparently nine of them were only able to be used by the Fallen, the others were opened by someone else."

"Opened?"

"The tablet said that on the sites of great atrocities, of massacre and where the blood of many innocents has been spilled, a crack into the lower plane opens in protest."

As remembered and read-about events filled his mind, Sam began to get an inkling of where at least some of the gates were.

"What else?"

* * *

"Spells for controlling the lesser hierarchies, rituals for binding the levels, incantations to open the gates of the nine," Jerome said, looking down at the pile of loosely bound papers in front of him. "Talismans and guards for moving unseen, the laws under which the accursed plane must operate, the histories of the Fallen and of the first human souls that Lucifer was given."

He looked up at Sam with a humourless smile. "Nightmare reading."

Shrugging that off, Sam leaned across the table. "Where's the closest gate we can open?"

"Sioux Falls," Marla told him, spreading out a map that had been marked with the locations of the gates in the United States across the table. "It was Azazel's gate."

Lifting a brow, Sam looked back at Jerome. "He wasn't one of the nine."

"No, but most of the top tier had their own gates," Jerome explained. "They can't enter or leave by any other."

"Anything to stop them from using the mental powers?" Dean asked from the doorway, limping up the steps and walking to the table. "The telekinesis and mind games?"

"Several spells and two of the talismans are designed to protect against that," Jerome confirmed, his brows drawing together as he looked at the hunter. "Should you be here?"

His arm was still in the sling, and under the fading and yellowing bruises, Dean's face was pale, freckles standing out over nose and cheeks. He looked at the legacy for a moment then turned to Sam without answering.

"You alright?"

"I'll live," Sam said shortly, looking pointedly at his brother's arm. "You look like hell."

"Thanks," Dean said, the crooked smile not reaching his eyes as he eased himself into a chair at the table. "So, full blueprints of how to get in there and nail those fuckers?"

"Pretty much," Sam agreed, looking back at the text in front of him. "Enough to make getting down the cage and back again a possibility."

"When do we go?"

Sam lifted his head and looked at his brother. "As soon as you can use your right hand," he said, the challenge very faint along the edge of his voice.

"A week or two then."

He snorted. "Yeah, right."

Ignoring that, Dean looked at Jerome. "Have we got what we need to open that gate in Sioux Falls?"

"Yes, the store-rooms have every item that's required," the scholar said, pushing his glasses back up his nose as he looked at Dean. "Once the gate is opened, the blood of Cerberus will allow entry through the cliffs."

"How long to make whatever talismans or wards to get through?"

"Franklin took a copy of the instructions last night," Jerome told him. "He thought a week or two, to make the moulds and work out the temperatures needed for the alloys."

"This was in yesterday's transcriptions, Sam," Marla said, moving around the table to Sam and holding out a couple of typed pages. "We think it's a new vision, fragments only, that came through while Chuck was transcribing."

Sam took them and started reading and Dean looked at her curiously. "Where is Chuck?"

"He's in his office with Mitch and Deirdre," Marla said, gesturing to the hallway. "He hasn't been constantly plugged in, the way he was before, and whenever he comes out of it, he can sleep on the couch with someone around to look after him all the time."

"He handling it okay?"

She gave him a dry look. "Not really."

"Dean."

They both turned to see Peter walk into the room, followed by Elena and Penemue.

"You missed her?"

"And the vampire," Peter said, dropping into the chair beside him. "But we found something else."

Marla watched the brothers as Peter told Dean about the Grigori base, and Sam focussed on the fragments of Chuck's latest vision, interleaved with a very vague account of sealing every gate without shutting the plane's entries. Of all three Winchester men, she found the oldest to be the most difficult to understand, or even come to the beginnings of understanding. Adam was simple, he was young and still labouring under his self-made burden of growing up without a father, the resentments still those of a child, denied something he wanted. Much of that immaturity had been purged from him over the last six months,, she knew, and when she'd seen him at the keep last week, he'd seemed older, more aware of others. She thought that Jerome was hoping Adam would return to the order, perhaps show an interest in becoming a legacy, since it seemed more and more likely that Sam would not be able to continue his work there and Dean showed little interest in either his history with them or in settling to a scholar's life.

Sam, she thought, was not simple, but he was not as deliberately evasive as his older brother. He'd told her a little of his past, and she knew the choices he'd made, the decisions he regretted with all his heart. She also saw the deeply hidden streak of fatalism that all three brothers seemed to share, unknowingly on Adam's part, and she thought, Sam's, but Dean obviously aware of it. She'd wondered if that was why the leader accepted every load laid on him, almost without noticing.

Watching Sam from under her eyelashes, she thought that Sam was also coming to accept that the load he had to carry was inescapable. He was, in some ways, looking forward to the trials, and in some ways, glad for the pain of the process he believed was a purification of the blood from his veins. She wasn't sure if he'd accepted and understood what had driven him along the path he'd taken yet, or if he was using what was happening to him now as a substitute for searching for that understanding, but she could see that no matter how agonising his torment became, there was still something inside of him that relished the pain, as some monks in the past had relished their self-inflicted agonies to prove to themselves that they were worthy of God's love. It was something she couldn't say to him, not now, not yet. Some time he would be ready to hear it, and then, she felt sure, he would understand what she meant.

Dean Winchester was different. He'd accepted his load, his pain and his mistakes and did nothing to mitigate them. A fighter, she thought, listening to him argue with Peter and the Qaddiysh, his deep voice raised a little. She had watched him with Alex, when they'd been here before the attack, and she'd thought then, especially in the last few days, that he had trusted no one else in the same way. Even with his brother, she sensed that the leader held a lot back, kept himself apart. And also with Rufus and Bobby and Ellen, there was always a sense that they knew a part of him, but not all of it, that he would never allow anyone to know all of him. Except that it had seemed, to her, that he had with the woman who had been carrying his children. She closed her eyes briefly, recalling the last evening she'd seen them together as they'd left the order, the way he'd looked at her, the protectiveness that had flowed naturally from him, surrounding her, but hesitantly, as if he'd never looked after someone quite like that before, hadn't felt quite that way with anyone before.

Opening her eyes, she looked at his profile, and realised that the shell she'd seen when she'd first him, before the battle in Atlanta and the destruction of Chitaqua, had returned to shield him. And it was harder. Thicker. Stronger. She realised she hadn't seen a single expression reach to his eyes in the last few weeks. They remained cold and calculating no matter who he was talking to – or what he was talking about.

"Anything on the cambion come out of that tablet yet?"

"Just what we already knew," Jerome said, watching Dean's expression as the younger man looked away, jaw tightening. "The stones and the mirror."

"We can't attack them front on," Peter said worriedly, watching the hunter as well. "There are five of them there, and their offspring and at least six cambion, possibly more. We wouldn't be able to get the slaves clear without risking them and us in the attempt."

For a long moment, Dean stared across the table, eyes hooded and thoughtful, then he nodded slowly. "Can Michel keep an eye on them? Now he's got a location?"

"Yes," Jerome said, feeling a thread of relief as he saw Dean relinquish the idea of killing everyone in the camp to get the fallen angels. It was a strategic decision but the wrong one, he thought. And he hadn't yet seen the hunter make a wrong choice. Except the one to trust the angel. "I sent him the location and he's modified the signature files to correlate with the three distinct energy frequencies they picked up via the defence satellite."

"What about Michigan?" Dean asked, rubbing a hand over his face. "Any word?"

"Not so far," Peter said. "Bobby and Rufus have been waiting."

* * *

_**May 30, 2013. West Keep, Kansas**_

He couldn't drive. The inability to do what came most naturally to him was unbelievably aggravating. Dean sat in the passenger seat of the Impala, his eyes fixed to the road ahead, the steady action of the wipers clearing the sheeting rain from the glass and bisecting his view, his face hard.

Beside him, hands curled lightly around the leather-covered wheel, Rufus slid a sideways glance at him.

"You alright?"

"Fine," Dean snapped automatically, then dragged in a breath and turned to look at him. Nothing that gone on in the last couple of weeks had anything to do with the man sitting beside him, and he trusted Rufus with the car, at least. "What'd Liev say, about the new design for the walls?"

"He was happy," Rufus told him. "Should be able to get them incorporated as soon as the outer wall is finished."

"Did he need help?"

"No, said he could manage."

"What's going on?" Dean asked reluctantly. He'd gone down to see the builder, and Liev had hustled him out of the construction zone as if he'd had a particularly contagious dose of the clap. Franklin's apprentice, Tony, had been the same way, and he'd seen the expressions on the faces of Franklin's new recruits, watching him doubtfully as he'd left.

"Seems like your temporary nurse was feeling a bit scorned," Rufus said uncomfortably. Dean looked at him, one brow lifted.

"Like which fury Hell hath no?"

The older hunter snorted. "Yeah, like that."

"She go to Tawas?"

"Yeah, she's gone," Rufus said, dragging in a deep breath. "Gave everyone she ran into a detailed account of her opinion of you before she went."

Dean rolled his eyes. "So?"

"You want this straight or am I get gonna get an eyeful of your fist if I don't sugar-coat it?"

"Come on."

"Between how you were before you left, and the detailed descriptions she passed around about what'd been done– what happened in Mass," he checked himself with an inward grimace. "There're a lot of people who aren't sure they're so willing to follow you," Rufus finished heavily. "Merrin told me that some assholes are talking about elections."

Dean's mouth lifted at one side. "To run interference on the Grigori and help Sam close the gates of Hell? Bring 'em on, I'll vote for whatever sap puts his hand up for that!"

"This isn't funny, Dean."

"Sure it is! This is fucking hilarious, man," Dean said, closing his eyes and leaning back in the seat. "Vote for someone else to take this load – fuck! Why the hell didn't I think of that? Months ago?"

"Like it or not, we need these people," Rufus insisted, flicking a glance at him. "And they need us –"

"No," Dean said abruptly, his amusement vanishing as he turned his head to look out through the window. "They don't need us. They don't need me."

* * *

_**Lightning Oak Keep, Kansas**_

Dean sat hunched in the armchair in front of the fire, vaguely aware of the rain still streaming down the glass of the narrow windows in the south wall, of Rufus and Bobby and Ellen's low conversation on the other side of the room, of the insistent throb in his shoulder with the tension that filled him.

"What the hell are they thinking?!" Ellen exclaimed, her voice rising in indignation.

"They're not thinking, really," Bobby said, glancing at the still figure near the hearth. "Just reacting, like always."

"We can't let this happen, Rufus," she said, dropping her voice as she took in Bobby's look. "This is insane."

The flames danced over the logs, twisting and bowing and flaring out hypnotically, and Dean tuned out their voices. It would be a good thing, if the keeps took over their own management, he thought remotely. It would let him do his job without having to think about everyone's welfare, without the load of their safety resting solely on him. That would be a good thing.

He'd never been fired from a job in his life – had left dozens, of his accord – but had never been told he wasn't fit for whatever he'd shown up to do. The thought kept circling in his mind. He knew he wasn't fit for it, not any more. He couldn't get on top of the rage that seeped out continuously, in his sleep, in his waking hours; couldn't direct it away from the people around him, couldn't be bothered with the effort of doing that. The confrontation with Zoe, after the priest had left, could've been handled better but he hadn't thought of that at the time, and that elusive memory had returned and the combination of grief and the betrayal of his own vulnerability and the rage had blown it all up.

Rufus and Bobby thought it'd been an overreaction, he knew. The rest of the keep as well, most likely. Another overreaction in the man who'd been pushed too far. His mouth twitched humourlessly. That was the truth, at least. He'd been pushed way too far. An involuntary shiver raced up his spine. Way too far.

Ellen walked over to the fire, sitting down in the chair opposite him, Rufus and Bobby trailing along behind her.

"We're not going to let this happen, Dean," she said, arranging herself awkwardly as she stared at him.

"Who're they looking at?" he asked Rufus.

"Uh, I think Russell is looking likely," Rufus said, scratching at his jaw and lifting a brow at Bobby.

"The teacher?" Dean frowned, trying to remember the tall, mild man. He'd helped save the kids in Chitaqua when the planes had come. That was the only solid memory he had of the guy.

Bobby nodded. "He's … uh, been doing some lobbying."

That image brought a scowl to Dean's face. "Nuh-uh, Liev or Jackson," he said sharply. "Happy to leave it to either one of them, but no one who wants the job gets it. We're not heading that road again."

Ellen glanced up at Bobby. "Merrin would probably be able to help us swing that," she said slowly. "But, Dean, this is – with everything that's going on –"

Dean looked at her. "Ellen, that's exactly why this isn't a bad thing. We're up to our necks in problems – hunter problems – and looking after the population as well – it's a distraction we can do without. I'm okay – I'm happy – to leave that to someone else, provided that they've got the sense to do the job right."

Rufus blinked. It was all true. He hadn't thought that Dean would ever feel that way, though. Be able to step back and hand over to anyone else. His brows drew together slightly as he opened his mouth.

"Why?"

The question brought a grin, one that didn't reach the younger man's eyes. As usual. "Hell, Rufus, we've got the end of the world sitting on our doorstep again. You think it's not a relief to leave the paperwork to someone else?"

He leaned forward in the chair. "All that crap Chuck's been spouting from the tablet, that'll protect the keeps and the farms," he said, looking from Rufus to Bobby to Ellen. "It'll give us the weapons we need to go after the source. Sam's going to do the second trial the second we've got those talismans from Frank, and I've got to go with him."

He gave them a moment to absorb that, glancing back at the fire. "It means that someone else has to go hunting for Nintu, and it looks like we've got at least two, but probably more, of the alpha monsters loose and shaking things up. Crowley might be dead, but there're three archdemons down in Hell, and who-the-fucks-knows-what going on in Heaven." He shrugged carefully, using his left shoulder only. "That's enough for us, don't you think?"

"Sure, but –" Bobby started to say, and Dean shook his head.

"No," he said, cutting him off. "What's the story in Michigan?"

* * *

_**Lago d'Orta, Italy**_

Luc shifted minutely again, feeling the water streaming over the rock he was lying on soaking into him steadily. "What are we doing here again?" he murmured to the man prone beside him.

"Watching the lake," Marc said softly, his hand shielding the binoculars he stared through from the steady drizzle. "Michel got new signature keys from the Utah location. The Grigori moved to Switzerland four days ago." He glanced around at the dark-haired hunter. "And we're keeping you of Antoinette's way so that she doesn't kill you before your children are born," he added with a grin.

Luc ignored that. He couldn't help himself, he thought defensively. Having successfully avoided any emotional entanglements for the last twenty-four years, he'd been astonished at the change in his emotions the minute the redhead had told him. Suddenly he was worried about her, about the pregnancy, about everything. Her irritation with him had grown proportionately.

"Did we find anything on them in the files?"

"Didn't you read the damned files when Francesca gave them to you?" Marc asked, his voice sharpening in exasperation. "Antoinette is supposed to the one forgetting things, not you."

"_Merde_," Luc said, his voice low and harsh as his hands tightened their grip on the glasses he held. "What the fuck is that?"

Looking back down to the narrow strip of road on the other side of the wide body of water, Marc refocussed the glasses on the movement the other hunter had seen emerge from the forest.

They leapt out at him, in far too much detail through the lenses of the glasses and he swallowed as he scanned the road, the estimate ticking upwards in his head. More than a hundred, more than a thousand, he realised as they kept walking out of the forest that covered the slopes of the mountains, their gait more of a shambling than a march but their purpose unmistakable even so.

_People_, he supposed. But not living. The skin slipped from them, sagging in folds of shiny grey meat, hair straggling in clumps that barely adhered to the scalps and here and there he saw the white gleam of bone through the rotting flesh. Their eyes were sunken deep within the sockets, their clothes fluttering and dragging in shreds around the pouchy and malformed bodies.

"Are they dead?" Luc asked, the binoculars pressed hard against his face.

"I think so," Marc answered him distractedly. "Zombies, perhaps."

"Marc, there're over a thousand, no one can raise zombies like that –"

"But someone has," Marc cut him off, lowering his glasses and rolling onto his side. "Pack up, we've got to get back."


	19. Chapter 19 Horns Deep Behind the Sun

**Chapter 19 Horns from the Deep Behind the Sun**

* * *

_**June 1, 2013. Nahant, Massachusetts**_

Without the demon's power, the house was dark and cold. Jesse stood in the middle of the large room that had been used the most, the indistinct shapes of the furniture looming and threatening in the thin moonlight that came and went through the tall windows as clouds scudded across the sky.

Sabrine's hand closed tightly around his and she snapped her fingers, a ball of light, brilliant white, the edges flickering blue, appeared above them, dispelling the shadows and the gloom and brightening slowly until the light reached every corner.

"Where was it?"

Jesse gestured to the doorway and they walked together out of the living room and into the hall, the girl's light spell bobbing along the ceiling ahead of them, turning right toward the kitchen and the basement door.

The room had been used by Hubertus, mostly. That'd been why the Grigori had hung the mirror there. To remind him, Hubertus had said. Remind him that they were not all-powerful. Jesse remembered the dry amusement in the cambion's voice. He hadn't been sure why that had been funny to Hubertus. The cambion had added that the Grigori were scared of them, and that one day, they would leave them, continue the search on their own. That'd been before Alison had disappeared. And now he was alone. He glanced up at the girl beside him and pushed the thought away. He wasn't alone.

"Stop," Sabrine said, looking at the scattered pieces of mirrored glass and the torn cloth lying on the floor as she sent the ball of light into the room ahead of them. "We can't search with our eyes, Jesse. We'll get trapped too."

He could tell she saw the blood, her mouth pinching up slightly as she looked elsewhere. There was a big dried patch in the floor under the hook, more here and there around the room.

"Close your eyes," she told him quietly. "I'll show you what the glass feels like, in our heads, then we'll pick it up together and put it in the bag."

He watched her put the wide-mouthed bag on the floor and closed his eyes, trembling a little as he felt the brush of her mind against his.

"Don't be afraid," she whispered.

"Tickles," he said, lifting his chin. He wasn't afraid. He was glad of her hand, still curled around his.

It wasn't like anything he'd done before. Images appeared to him, not exactly images … _imagethoughtactionexplanation_ … was more accurate.

_Feel the pieces, all of them, the big ones and small ones and the tiny pieces of glass powder from the edges, feel how they are all the same, all made of the same thing, vibrating with the same energy, they're not like anything else in the room_.

His head tilted a little, as he listened to her, the images that weren't images overlaying the speech that wasn't speech, and he felt the swelling heat in his hands and chest, the heat that always presaged the things he could do.

_When you bend reality, when you manipulate the universe, Jesse, you are changing the form of the energy already present_, Draxler's voice sounded in his memories. _To change the form of energy, it is often heat that is the by-product, yet another form in the infinite variety that we can touch_. The cambion had explained what he could do. Had been teaching him about it.

In the brilliantly lit room, the shards and fragments and fine, powdery dust of the broken mirror rose and formed a spiral, the reflective glass flashing as the pieces were separated from the ordinary dust, from dried flakes of blood and tiny shreds of rope and cloth, from motes of steel and scraps of flesh. She was right, he thought remotely. The mirror was different from everything else, he could feel the difference and it made it easy to keep all the pieces separate.

The growing spiral fountained in a gentle arc across the room, flowing smoothly into the bag, each piece and grain and sliver cushioned from the others in air and the black cloth the Grigori had used to keep the mirror's power quiescent ribboning in after them. The zipper on the mouth of the bag closed and Sabrine opened her eyes.

"Good," she said, repressing a shiver at the thought of the mirror. To her, it had felt cold. And hungry. "You did really good, Jesse."

He nodded self-consciously, staring at the closed bag. Hubertus was in there. Trapped in a piece of the mirror, Sabrine had told him. Julius would make the mirror whole again with one of his spells, and they were working on a way to get the cambion out. It wasn't as bad as Alison disappearing.

* * *

_**Strawberry Peak, Utah**_

"Good job," Karl said shortly, taking the bag from the girl and turning away. "See Peyotr, he has another, much more important task for you."

Jesse watched the burly man carry the bag away down the hall, his questions caught in his throat.

"Come on," Luke's voice, more or less broken and consistent now, caught his attention. "We have to find people. A lot of people."

"Why?" Sabrine asked, taking Jesse's hand again and drawing him after her as she followed the older boy.

"I don't know," Luke said with a careless shrug. His powers were declining, he wasn't as strong as Sabrine anymore, and nowhere near the power of the younger boy. "There was some talk of an army."

"Marius said that they were looking for graves," Sabrine half-whispered to him. "Are we supposed to find dead people too?"

"No." He shook his head, only a little uncertainly. "No, they said we would look in Virginia and in Washington, in the mountains beyond Spokane. There are people hiding there."

"If we're looking in two states …," she trailed away, looking at the boy walking beside her. "They won't split us up, will they?"

Luke slowed and turned his head to look at her. "Sabrine, they'll do whatever they have to and we will do whatever we're told," he said sharply, his gaze slipping past her to Jesse. "And to bring so many back here, of course you'll be working one state while he works another. You know that."

"He's not ready to work on his own."

"He won't be," Luke assured her. "Marius said he would go with Jesse east. You and me and Felice will go north."

* * *

_**June 10, 2013. West Keep, Kansas**_

Dean walked fast across the stone-paved bailey, head ducked against the heavy rain. The water trickled down the back of his neck and into his coat, and he lengthened his stride, his right arm tucked hard against his ribs to keep it from moving, every footfall jarring it a little. He looked up at the keep steps and saw Sam waiting for him inside the doors, his brother's hair equally wet and hanging around his face.

"Ellen alright?" Dean called out, taking the steps two at a time and squeezing sideways through the doors, Sam closing them behind him.

"Doc thinks so," Sam said, waiting as Dean shed his coat and ran a hand through his hair. "Meredith is coming over as fast as Tim can drive her."

"What happened?"

"Merrin said placental abruption," Sam said, seeing incomprehension on Dean's face. He'd had no idea before the nurse had explained it to him either. "It's serious."

"How'd it happen?"

"Older women are at more risk than younger ones," Sam said, his long stride keeping up with Dean's fast pace down the hall easily. "And Ellen said she had the same problem when she had Jo, that increases the risk factor as well."

"Where's Bobby?"

"Waiting to see her."

"What're they doing?" Dean said, brows drawing in as they turned together for the stairs leading to the wards.

"There's not much they can do – just keep an eye on things. Apparently, the placenta has only just begun to come away, Ellen recognised what was happening and got here fast, but she was unconscious by the time she did."

Dean slowed as he saw Bobby sitting hunched up in the hall outside one of the smaller rooms. He glanced back at Sam. "Can you find Merrin, ask how it's going? Gimme a minute or two?"

Sam nodded and turned into the offices, and Dean walked to the old hunter.

"You alright?" he asked Bobby, sitting down on the long wooden settle next to him.

"No," Bobby growled. His hands were mangling his cap, twisting the brim around and crushing it as he tried to keep the volcanic feelings out of his face, out of his voice. Dean looked at him for a moment, uncomfortably disconcerted by the vulnerability of Bobby's face without the familiar protective shadow of the hat over it.

"Is she going to be okay?"

Bobby exhaled sharply. "They think so. They don't know for sure."

He ducked his head, staring at the cap. "Kim told Ellen there was a chance this'd happen. It's not like we weren't prepared for the possibility," he said slowly. "'cept, a' course, I wasn't."

Clearing his throat, Dean asked, "When will they know? If she's going to be alright, I mean?"

Bobby turned to look at him, his face bleak. "She'll have to stay for the next few weeks," he said, mouth twisted up. "There's no way of telling what's gonna happen, so she has to be here in case – well, just in case."

"Who's taken over at Lightning Oak?" Dean asked, not wanting to ask but unable to just leave it. Without either of them there, the keep was pregnable.

"Took a leaf outta your book," Bobby told him, his face screwing up. "Asked Franklin to move over and run things."

"What about Rufus?"

"Thought Rufus'd be needed here, when you get the itch to go do something else stupid," Bobby said acerbically.

Dean leaned back against the wall. Despite spending the past week doing little else but researching every available source, he wasn't anywhere close to being able to do anything, stupid or otherwise.

"Haven't found all the details for the second trial yet," he said mildly.

"Not for lack of looking," Bobby said. "How many bullets you got left for the Colt?"

"Nine."

"Bring it around tomorrow, I gotta go back to the keep and show Franklin the ropes, I'll give him the run-down on making more."

In the hall, the distant sounds of the machines the medical team used for patient care was muted. There was the occasional clank of metal on stone or concrete and the footsteps of Merrin's trainee corp of nurses in their soft-soled shoes coming or going, but they were there on their own for most of the time. Dean felt the weight of the near-silence surrounding them. It was filled with too many things. Hope. Fear. Doubt. Urgency. Resignation.

"I didn't want kids," Bobby said suddenly, drawing in a deep breath. "When I married Karen, I didn't tell her that. She waited. And waited. And it was a few days before the – the – uh, attack, that she finally couldn't wait any more."

Dean slid a sideways glance at the man beside him, seeing Bobby staring at the cap still, his hands closed and tight around it, knuckles gleaming white through the taut skin. He'd never said much about Karen or his marriage or his life before Rufus had charged in and explained what had happened.

"I told you before, my old man was a waste of space," he continued, the words coming out reluctantly. "I didn't want to take the chance that I'd turn out the same. Didn't want to raise any kid like that, didn't want that responsibility."

"You wouldn't've," Dean said quietly, watching him.

"Didn't know that then." Bobby shrugged, his breath escaping in a long exhale. "When your Daddy brought you boys, that first time, hell," he said, snorting softly. "I didn't know what I was doing, more nervous those first few days than I've ever been, before or since." His hands relaxed on the cap slightly and he lifted one and rubbed his forehead. "By the time he came to get you, I knew I'd been wrong."

He lifted his head, staring at the thick wooden door on the other side of the hall. "I can't lose this chance twice," he said softly.

Dean closed his eyes, the words dropping into the emptiness. He'd thought that too.

* * *

In the long dining hall, dressed in an assortment of cast-offs and thick, knitted sweaters, Dean passed Jimmy twice before he recognised him, unconsciously looking for the tan trenchcoat that had become an integral part of his memories of the man.

"Been looking for you," he said, dropping into the empty chair on the opposite side of the table.

Jimmy looked up at him, wiping the sauce in his bowl with a piece of bread. "Why?"

"I was wondering what you wanted to do," he said, frowning and shifting his position in the chair as the shoulder twinged. "You can stay here –"

"Did you find my family?" Jimmy asked abruptly, pushing the cleaned bowl aside.

"No," Dean said uncomfortably. There'd been no records of Amelia or Claire Novak in any of the keeps, nor in the camps in Michigan. "They might be hiding, or with a much smaller group –"

"Or they might be dead," Jimmy said, looking at him steadily. "And we'd never know, never be able to find out."

"No," Dean admitted. The virus. The croats. The demons. Lucifer. The monsters. They'd never be able to find out, one way or the other.

"So, why would you think I had any plans?" Jimmy leaned forward on the table, his eyes cold. "What makes you think I want to do anything?"

"Cas might come back –"

"Yeah," Jimmy said sardonically. "And I'm looking forward to that because _that_ was so much fun."

"What'd you do, before Cas jumped you?" Dean asked, not wanting to get into that conversation. The last time Jimmy had likened the experience to being chained to a comet. It hadn't sounded fun then either.

Jimmy blinked. "I sold advertising time on radio," he said slowly. "I went to church. I believed in God." He looked around the big, high-ceilinged room. "I liked it better when I just believed, when I didn't know – not for sure."

He looked back at Dean. "Castiel told me he'd protect my family. He _promised_ me that when I let him in. We had a deal and he – he fucking well broke it," he said, his face twisting up. "You think I give a rat's about any of this now?"

"No," Dean said, his pulse beating erratically in the wound in his shoulder. "No, I can see you don't."

He got up and looked down at the man whose face was so familiar, and who he didn't know at all. "Let, uh, Jackson know if you get the itch to do something useful."

Jimmy stared at him for a moment, then looked away.

* * *

_**Talifah, Jordan**_

The desert wind sighed through the narrow canyon, belling softly in the hole in the rock. On the canyon floor, the hard sand shifted and then spun up as the downdraught of the angel's wings swept it aside, the faint patter of the grains against the rock walls unheard even by the canyon's nocturnal inhabitants.

The precise location of the Qaddiysh had been difficult to find, despite the knowledge of their individual frequencies, the shielding around the canyon blurring it all just enough to make it seem … more natural. But Metatron had not taken everything with him when he'd fled from Raphael and Heaven, and the libraries had eventually yielded the information.

He walked along the twisting narrow floor of the canyon, the starlight adequately showing the path through the wind-sculpted rock, and looked up at the façade as the bends and turns brought him to the stronghold, smiling a little at his brothers' efforts. It wasn't exactly the same as the eastern face of the Temple but the resemblance was close enough to bring a pleasant sense of familiarity to those who'd been there and seen it for themselves.

The doors opened and golden light spilled through, casting sharp-edged shadows over the paved porch and haloing the two men who stood in the doorway.

"Armârôs," he said, inclining his head to the taller of the two. "It has been a long time."

"Too long, Camael," the man who was not, really, a man, said, his long copper-bright hair lit to flame with the flickering torches behind it.

"To what do we owe the pleasant surprise of this visit?" the other man said, his voice without inflection but the edge still faintly discernible.

"I have news, Sariel," Camael said, stepping up to the porch and looking at them. "And an urgent request from Michael."

Armârôs stepped back, pulling the door open as the archangel walked through it.

"What kind of request?" Sariel asked warily. In the light of the huge hall, his hair gleamed like the feathers of a raven, a straight fall bound at the brow with a simple circlet of silver.

"And what news?" Armârôs added, closing the door and turning to the archangel. "Of Heaven? The conflict?"

"Yes," Camael answered Armârôs' question first, following the Qaddiysh into the library. "You know Raphael is dead?"

"We felt it," Armârôs said, his voice tight. "He was conspiring against Michael?"

"For a long time, we've discovered," Camael confirmed. "This conspiracy goes beyond him, we do not yet know the extent of the corruption Raphael wrought in throughout the ranks."

"How many?"

The archangel lifted his hands. "One third of the angels in Heaven fell with Lucifer, to fight against the edict of our Father. We believe more – many more – felt the same way but could not make that choice for themselves. Someone is helping the Grigori."

Armârôs' eyes narrowed. "Helping them to do what?"

"Gabriel is in China now," Camael said, sitting at the low table and leaning toward the red-haired Qaddiysh. "They have been raising the dead there, attempting to build an army for the prophecy of the Last Battle."

"What?" Sariel stared at him.

"You remember the story," the blond angel said.

"It is not the end," Sariel countered tightly. "Even the three wouldn't dare –"

"Oh, they would dare," Camael cut him off. "They have dared. Belial rose two days ago to see the Grigori in the state of Utah, and the shadow he draws is growing."

"And what is it that Heaven requires of us?" Gadriel asked, his voice raised as he walked slowly toward the table.

Camael looked up at the man. "Michael asks for the power of Kokabiel," he said simply. "To force the demons back into the abyss."

"Kokabiel has not dealt with Hell in more than two thousand years, Camael," Sariel said, glancing to the end of the long library.

"His authority was never relinquished, Sariel," the archangel argued. "You know that. We cannot risk a conflict on the lower plane while Heaven is so close to outright war."

"Where is Michael?"

The voice, deep and measured came from behind them. Kokabiel walked into the library from the hall, almond-shaped amber eyes on the archangel.

"Quelling a rebel force that attempted to attack the library," Camael answered.

"We are no longer Heaven's weapons, Camael," the commander of demons said evenly, stopping beside the table.

"Your swords are still your own," Camael retorted, his gaze flicking to the long, silver blade that hung from the knotted cord at the man's waist. "They still sing with your Grace." He looked back at Sariel. "And I can take care of Belial. What I cannot do, what I must have your help for, is to send the demons he's brought with him back to the accursed plane."

Gadriel looked at Kokabiel. "He might be right."

The Qaddiysh's crooked smile creased his face as he acknowledged that. "How many have they raised?"

"I don't know, none of us know the full extent," Camael told him. "Many have already possessed the living and the dead, and those have been shielded from us, hidden by ward and guard."

Kokabiel got to his feet, looking at his brothers. "More than one gate must be standing open for so many to have come through. I will come with you, Camael."

"And I too," Gadriel said, rising from the table as he looked at Kokabiel. "You will need someone to watch your back."

The words, lightly spoken, did not hide the lack of trust in the Qaddiysh's eyes for the archangel who came to his feet more slowly.

"Of course," he said, his voice cool. "Two swords are more useful than one."

* * *

_**June 14, 2013. Fletcher Pond, Northern Michigan**_

It was dusk, and the half-moon wouldn't rise for another six hours, but the wolf song was all around them, distorted and muffled in the forest and echoing out over the broad stretch of water to their right, ululations rising and falling in the cold night air.

Boze grimaced at the disorienting noise, glancing over his shoulder at Maurice. "Half-moon, not even risen yet, and they're all out."

The hunter nodded, looking around. "We found a lot of lore about the first ones," he said, in a low voice. "Not triggered by the moon, and they can transform whenever they like. Passed it on to the next four generations as well."

"Well, that's just great," the big man said sourly. "Please tell me silver still does the job."

"It does," Maurice said. "So long as you get the heart."

"No problem."

He lifted the rifle and checked the load again. Franklin had delivered the cases of the silver bullets when he'd arrived last week, fourteen men with him and a couple of trucks of new ordnance and ammunition for the camps.

The clearing was perhaps thirty yards across, a stream running between the woods and the open ground to one side, with a steep bank and a tangle of storm debris piled up the side. In the thick gloaming light, the trunks of the mixed forest were indistinct, shadow on shadow and half-hidden by the undergrowth of bracken and shrub and wild blackberry. They had no fire, needing their night vision, as much or more than the shooters concealed in the branches around the clearing. It'd been Dean's idea, Boze recalled, a few months back when they'd been gas-bagging about hunts in general. A half-joking suggestion of tethered goat and marksmen, but he'd thought it was a good one, joke or not. He was sure that Raat was here, with the pack that had been attacking the camps. The creature hadn't shown itself near the settlements, too much open ground and too many defensive points for the shooters. Maurice had agreed. A bait-and-trap was the only way they'd bring it out, and they'd come a long way north, into what had been a state park, to do that.

In the spreading branches of a young maple, Sean shifted his position slightly and scanned around the edges of the clearing through the thermal imager mounted on his helmet. Every time he saw Franklin, he ended up coming away more soldier than hunter, he thought. The unit was heavy but not cumbersome, fast to move out of the way if he got a target in the dense undergrowth and the range was three hundred yards, which would give the men below the essential time they'd need if the monsters came in fast.

He saw the blurred shape at the edge of his field and moved his head slightly, watching it joined by several others.

"Boze," he breathed, the throat mike picking up the vibrations of his larynx and transmitting them to the leader crouched in the middle of the clearing. "You got company."

"How many?" Boze's voice was soft through his earpiece.

"Six."

"Rob, Paul, you got a visual?"

Sean heard the affirmatives from the hunters perched in trees on the other side of the clearing.

"They're coming from every side, Boze," Paul said, turning through the twenty degrees he was covering. "They'll be at the edge of the trees in less than a minute."

"Alright." Boze slid his finger from the guard onto the trigger. "Take 'em out when they break cover, or in the tree-line if you've got a clean shot. Here we go."

Knowing that they were coming, the three men crouched in the open ground could hear the rustles, the soft snaps of twigs under the heavy feet. Boze felt his eyes widen involuntarily as he saw the first animal emerge from the depth of the shadows into the clearing through the goggles he wore. The colours and lighting were wrong, the night-vision turning everything to green and grey, but the shape was distinct and clear. It was a wolf. Maurice had told him about the transformations, but he hadn't really believed it. But it was a huge wolf, no trace of the man that it'd been, the pelt shaggy and thick, the head canine, long muzzle and jaws slightly open, tongue hanging out. He felt himself tense, his finger taking up the resistance.

In less than a heartbeat, the clearing was chaos. More than six wolves bounded out from the forest edges, the shooters in the trees firing and bringing them down, ten yards from the men, or five, Boze, Maurice and Mel back to back in the centre, crouched and shooting the automatic rifles they held on semi-automatic fire, the bullets, punching through fur and muscle and bone, designed to expand in the bodies wreaking terrible damage and not exiting. The wolves fell in the ferocious cross-fire, their bodies piling on the ground, transforming back into men.

A group of four burst from cover together, accelerating toward the hunters, and Boze swung around, aiming and shooting automatically, bringing down two. In the tree to the left of the men, Sean screamed the warning into the headset, fingers fumbling with the bolt of his gun as the creature bounded out from the opposite side, jumping the steep creek bank and the tangle of deadwood and landing feet from Mel.

It was a wolf, there was no mistaking that but it was twice the size of the others, twice the size of a normal grey wolf, eyes narrowed lambent gold in the massive head, the shoulders the width of a big man. Mel turned as it leapt, his shot going wide as he swung the gun up automatically, the weight of the animal knocking him to the ground and his bellow of shock and rage cut off abruptly as the monstrous jaws closed around his neck.

Beside him, Maurice rolled back, his thumb flicking the gun to automatic and the bullets chattering into the wolf's side when it dropped Mel and turned on him. He was instantly aware that every fucking shot had missed, heard Boze wheeze from behind him and the fusillade of the leader's M60 roar past him, but the wolf lunged forward, and he felt the teeth sink deeply into his leg, shredding through his clothes easily, stabbing into muscle, and an enormous pain ripping up his body through his nervous system.

Boze swore furiously, rolling away and coming up on one knee, the barrel sweeping across the smaller wolves still coming from the woods, as the steady crack-crack came from high in the trees. He saw a hole appear in the side of the animal's head, the exit hole spattering bone and blood over Maurice's face as he was dragged across the grass. The wolf dropped him and howled into the night as another bullet ploughed into his chest, missing the huge heart by millimetres only.

Then the clearing was still, filled with blood and bodies, churned up grass and piles of thick, coarse fur that the transformations shed, the rasping wheeze of Maurice as he lay bleeding out onto the spring grass. Boze straightened, lurching to his feet and ran to the hunter, his heart sledging against his ribs as he looked down at the livid mess of Maurice's leg.

"Christ."

Maurice rolled his head toward him, jaw knotted and eyes narrowed. "Boze, make it fast."

Staring at him, Boze shook his head. The order had come up with a cure for vampirism, maybe there would be one for this too. Maybe they would have the right spell or potion. He couldn't give up on Maurice, not here, not now. He felt the hunter's hand close around his arm, the fingers digging in as they clenched involuntarily in anguish.

"Come on," Maurice ground out. "We both know where this goes. Just get it over with."

"The order – they might –" he stumbled over the words, staring at the man's eyes. Already, there was a light behind the irises, faint but there.

Behind them, Sean, Rob and Paul dropped to the ground, rifles cocked and barrels raised as they looked around at the bodies and walked toward them.

"They didn't have anything for any of the shapeshifters," Maurice said, his voice deepening. "There's nothing going to help me now, man, just a bullet."

Neither of them saw the shreds and strings of skin and flesh rippling slightly under the flaps of denim, drawing closer together. Boze stared at Maurice, knowing that he was right, knowing it and unable to lift the gun in his hand.

Maurice jerked forward, his body curling in on itself as a groan forced its way out of his throat. Heat and a twisting pain filled him and he rolled onto his back, fingers digging deeply into the grass and soil. Boze stood immobile as he stared at the bones of his friend's face, pushing out, heard the crunching and crackling of unnatural growth and elongation. Maurice arched up, muscles of back and legs contracting sharply, lifting him off the ground as a deep, guttural roared out of his throat.

"Boze! Back!" Sean shouted, lifting his rifle as Maurice rolled over, Rob and Paul's shots coming straight on the heels of his.

Maurice spun around and leapt for the deadwood, transforming from man to wolf mid-air, hind legs scrabbling on the loose dirt of the bank as he landed, and the four men fired together. Sean saw the impacts on the dark grey coat, shoulder and hindquarter, one skating under the flank.

Boze stared at the dark forest, listening to the snapping of the vegetation and thuds fading away. He had to get back to the camp. Had to tell Rufus and Dean. Had to figure out what to do. He turned back to the clearing and gestured tiredly. "Come on, let's get these burned."

* * *

_**June 20, 2013. Ghost Valley Farm, Kansas**_

The evenings were still cool enough for a fire and sitting at the scrubbed oak table, Dean was glad enough to feel the warmth on his back, the cheerful light playing across the white-painted ceilings and the muted crackle of the flames behind him.

"Why me?" Jackson scowled at him, ignoring the amusement in Riley's face.

"Liev was the other choice," Dean said, leaning back in the chair. "He's got too much on with the new accommodation to be able to manage both jobs at the same time."

"And I'm sittin' here twiddlin' my thumbs, that it?"

"You've got more backup," Sam said diplomatically, glancing at Riley and Harrison, the two farmers careful to keep their faces expressionless.

"And most of what's needed is centred around what you're doing anyway," Dean added bluntly. "Food for everyone, protection for everyone, you know the people, they've all worked out here at one time or another, you know the hunters …" he trailed off, waving a hand vaguely. "And you won't put up with bullshit."

"Got that right," Riley said, ducking his head as Jackson swivelled to glower at him.

"They're looking for someone stable," Dean told him, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. "That's not us."

For a moment he thought the older man might argue with him, and he marshalled his counters carefully. It wasn't just the people, it wasn't just the fact that he or any of the hunters could die tomorrow if the job turned sour. It was always going to be like this, there was always going to have to be those who were prepared to go and meet the problems head-on, and he couldn't do it if he was worrying about what was going on back in the settlements while he wasn't there.

"Alright," Jackson said, leaning back slightly as Rebecca set fresh coffees in front of them, moving around the table silently. "For argument's sake, let's say I agree –"

Dean's mouth lifted at one side. "Yeah, let's."

"Is this a permanent job or just a temporary one?" Jackson asked, ignoring the smirk and the comment.

Sam glanced at Dean. "Four year term?"

Dean shook his head. "Can't do dick in four years," he said, picking up the hot coffee and swallowing a mouthful. "For the moment, no end date. If we get through what we have to do, and everything's still standing, there'll be time to sort out a better system. For now, we need stability and one person where the buck stops."

"Heavy load," Harrison said, looking at Jackson. "Lotta detail in a job like that."

"Maybe a decision-maker and a couple of advisors then?" Sam suggested, looking at his brother. Dean had worked that way for the last three years, according to Alex. He didn't make a decision without checking all the input he could get.

"Bobby and Rufus'll keep you up to date on the threats," Dean said, repressing the impulse to shrug. He didn't really care how the man worked it out so long as the responsibility was off him. "Liev, Merrin, Maria and Freddie'll tell you what's happening day to day. And Franklin handles whatever justice needs to be meted out. It's more about seeing that it's going smoothly and stopping anything from getting out of hand before it gets going than anything more hands-on."

Patrice appeared in the doorway, lifting a brow as she looked at the clock above the range. "Are you gentlemen partaking of our hospitality tonight?"

Dean glanced at her, then at his brother. Sam nodded. They weren't nearly done here.

"Yes, ma'am," Dean said, catching a glimpse of Jackson's harried expression as she sent him a sharp stare and turned on her heel to make up the bedrooms.

"Can't you find someplace else for that woman to organise?" Jackson looked at him aggrievedly through Riley's snorting laughter.

"Not my job anymore," Dean grinned at him. "You figure out a place where she'll be of more use, you can stick her wherever."

* * *

Three hours later, Dean stretched his toes out to the fire blazing in the long, wide living room, head tipped back and eyes closed. He couldn't get warm anymore, didn't matter how close he was to the fire, his skin burning hot but a steadfast chill everywhere else. Whiskey had the same effect, a roar down his throat then sitting cold in his stomach.

Mel gone. Maurice gone or as good as, hunting with the monster who'd turned him now. Jasper and Katherine had found more about the demon prophecy and he kept dreaming about the plain at the edge of the mountains and the shadow drawing across the land from the east. Denver, he thought tiredly. What was left of the city. It wasn't surprising it'd taken him so long to figure it out, there was virtually nothing left of it.

Franklin had finished the talismans. They didn't know if they would hide Sam and there was only one way to find out for sure. Chuck had listed the gates and the incantations to get through them. He'd watched his brother's scowl deepen. There were dozens of ways to get into Hell, apparently, if you had the right resources. Sam hadn't and it was all ancient history now anyway.

A gate. In Sioux Falls. Azazel's gate and he wasn't sure if that meant something or not. Whatever it was that was tearing his brother up inside was getting worse, not better, and a creeping certainty told him he was going to lose everything, no matter what he did or how hard he fought.

The thought was curiously dry, devoid of any feeling, good or bad. Driving back from Iowa, he'd worn the medallion for three days, partly to ensure that he couldn't feel anything, partly to hide the cars from Crowley if the demon decided that they'd be easy targets on the open road. When he'd taken it off, the numbness had remained, a cold emptiness that tasted like poison at the back of his throat and had damped down the one emotion he could still feel.

Nintu was still roaming and he was going to have to do something about that. It was another job he wasn't going to leave to someone else. And then there were what Rufus and Bobby had nicknamed the Alphas. The first born children of the dark-haired goddess. The werewolf and vampire were out there. Possibly others. Probably others, he thought, rubbing a hand against his jaw, the stubble pricking on his fingertips. Their destruction wasn't going to be as easy as the skinwalker. There was supposed to be a tablet for dealing with them too, but of the nine possible locations the spell keyed to the scribe of Heaven had revealed, there wasn't much chance of figuring out which belonged to which tablet. Except, of course, the angel tablet.

He opened his eyes and looked at the half-full glass on the small table beside him. The golden liquid didn't do much now. Unless you counted what it was doing to his liver, he thought sourly. But he wasn't drinking much either anymore. There didn't seem to be a point. He was tired, dog-tired, but he shied away from the thought of sleep and the dreams it invariably brought along with it, looking up as Sam came through the door, hair damp from the shower.

"What else do we need?"

Sam sighed, sitting in the armchair opposite. He knew exactly what Dean was talking about. He closed his eyes, leaning against the plush back of the armchair as he mulled over what Chuck had revealed about the gates and the disparate elements of the second trial.

"Not much else," he said finally, opening his eyes and turning to look at his brother. "I can go pretty much anytime."

Dean smiled humourlessly. "Good, we'll go tomorrow."

"Not we, Dean."

"You have a meltdown on the road there and kill yourself and how's that going to help the cause?"

"It's not happening that often any more."

"But it's still happening," Dean said, leaning forward in the chair. "And whatever's going on with your lungs, that's getting worse."

Sam looked away. He hadn't realised his brother had known about the coughing.

"Oh yeah, I know," his brother told him, as if he'd read the thought. "This thing – this contract – even if it is burning that blood out of you, Sam, you're a helluva lot weaker than you were, and you got no control over it."

"So?" Sam asked bluntly. "This is a one-man show, Dean. You can't come into Hell with me."

"No," he agreed unwillingly. "But I can get you there, and back."

"I thought you wanted to go to Michigan, find Maurice and that alpha?"

"I will, when we're done."

"I was going to ask Adam to do the driving," Sam said, looking at the fire.

"Adam?" Dean stared at him. "Adam's still recovering from having his guts ripped to shreds by a point-blank shot."

"Whereas you're a picture of health?" Sam asked derisively, looking at the white taping that still held his brother's right shoulder stiffly. "Of the two of you, I wouldn't bet on who was the quicker draw."

"That's hilarious," Dean said, his expression flattening out.

"Look," Sam said appeasingly. "I just think you'd better off doing something more – proactive – than babysitting me."

"Yeah, well, you're wrong about that." Dean looked at him, his face tight and drawn. "Number one job we got – closing Hell. And going in there to grab the devil's pig-sticker, that's not a cake-walk, Sam. So you got back up."

Sam looked down at his hands. The burning was still going on, and he could feel the cells in his body, reluctantly giving up the component that had been a part of him all his remembered life. Dean was right, he was weaker. And that wasn't improving. He didn't understand why his strength would be sucked out of him right when he needed it the most, but he knew, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that it would only be in completing what he'd started that it would improve.

Watching the expressions chase each other over his brother's face, Dean realised that Sam was scared. He didn't think he was afraid of dying.

"The last time you completed the trial, you just about collapsed, Sam," he said carefully. "You need someone who knows what's going on when you get out."

"Yeah," Sam acceded unwillingly, knowing it, not wanting to think about it. "Alright."

He didn't want Dean there, watching him, assessing him, ill-concealed impatience and the cold indifference judging him. But he was right. If – when – he finished the trial and renewed the contract, he had a feeling what was happening to him would only get worse, and he needed someone he could trust there. He had to do this, had to finish it. Had to find a way to make right the mistakes of the past and see something in his brother's eyes that wasn't disappointment.

* * *

_**Appalachian Mountains, Virginia**_

Standing by the folded and cracked exposed slabs of the mountain, Jesse looked down into the small valley below. Two or three buildings of stone had been supplemented with a dozen ramshackle and hastily-made log cabins, their walls leaning or not meeting precisely at the corners, the buildings surrounding a pond and some ground cleared, the thin soil turned in crooked lines and showing a mist of green.

"Guess they missed out on finding any engineers," Marius said, his mouth twisting as he looked at the buildings. "How many do you see?"

"There are a hundred and eighty-three people there," Jesse said, his gaze fixed on the valley floor. He looked up at the man beside him. "I can feel them."

"Well, let's get on with it," Marius said impatiently, starting down the narrow deer trail. "We need a lot more than this and we're probably not going find any really big groups."

* * *

Lee Chambers looked up from the grinding wheel, seeing the two figures walking across the meadow toward the settlement. He let the wheel rumble to a stop, thumb automatically feeling for the sharpness of the knife blade in his hand as he slid it back in the sheath at his hip, his right hand reaching for the shotgun that leaned against the chair. He stood and walked out of the low, roughly-made shelter into the sunshine, his gaze fixed on the strangers as he moved toward them.

Behind him, he heard the cocking of rifles and the bootsteps of several others.

A man and a boy, he thought, holding his hand up to the men and women behind him.

"Help you?" he called out, when they got closer.

"We're looking for people," the man said, his gaze swinging around the small group of buildings. "We were – there were – these things, in the dark –"

Lee heard a snort from beside him as Seth moved up. "Yeah, lotta that going around now."

"Can you help us?" the boy asked. "I'm Jesse."

"Marius," the man said, holding his hand out to Lee. He took a few steps nearer. "We're not armed."

* * *

_**June 22, 2013. Sioux Falls, South Dakota**_

The car bounced over the corrugations and trenches in the soft dirt road, Dean pressing them against the side of the hill when parts were washed out altogether. Rising through the low hills, the road followed the contours, detouring where the bare red rock protruded, dug out drainage ditches long since collapsed and clogged with earth, sending the rainfall and runoff sluicing under the wheels.

The steady beat of the wipers was a little louder than the engine and the sibilant hiss of the tyres through the wet mud, and Sam looked down at the map he held.

"Another few hundred yards and we're over this ridge," he said. "The road finishes at the top of the valley."

Dean nodded, shifting down as the tyres slipped a little on the muddy surface, his face closed and tense as he concentrated on the conditions. The storm had blown up while they'd been picking their way around the degeneration of the larger roads leading from Nebraska north and while most of the gravel or asphalt roads had been reasonably clear of hulks, their condition was usually a lot worse after three years of zero maintenance.

The headlights arced over the ridgeline and he pulled off on a broad flat stretch of shoulder, turning off the engine and killing the lights, the low-hanging cloud and gloom of the storm swallowing the car. Sam listened to the tick of the hot engine over the drumming of the rain on the roof, his thoughts still cycling over what he had to do next.

Blood opened gates. Blood and pain. From the outside, on this plane, it took an enormous amount of both to use that key. The blood of Cerberus opened the inner doors, through the cliffs. The vial Oliver had extracted from their clothing would be enough to get him through those. Azazel's gate, connected to the Fallen, but not one of the nine, could be opened with a ritual using the demon's sigil. Aaron had been working on collating the sigils, the true names of the beings that had no souls, before he'd died and Katherine had taken the painstaking research, finding the incantation when Chuck had revealed the details of the gates.

_In magic_, Jerome had told them a few days ago, the legacy's face still thin and pale, _the ability to influence and control anything depends solely on knowing what it is – the essence of it. For humans, even for the nephilim and the cambion and the monsters who'd once been human, that essence is the soul. For the angels and the angels who'd become demons, and the creatures that had been created without a human beginning, power over them relies on discernment of their true essence in a different way. Calling the elements_, Jerome had explained, _needs the knowledge of their true names, what they are, not what mankind calls them_.

It made a certain sense, Sam thought. People used magic through their subconscious, really, not through their conscious minds. And the subconscious did not have language, only symbols, powerful encapsulations of concepts, stripped of ambiguity, whittled down to the essential – to the essence. He'd felt a rush of excitement as he'd listened to the old man, an unacknowledged longing to learn more about the subject not for a end-goal or purpose but for the knowledge itself.

He'd watched Marla's face light up as she pursued the track of an elusive fact through the histories and books and texts in the library; had seen her focussed delight when she mastered a precept that was essential to her understanding of a spell or ritual. He remembered the same high when he'd understood something he'd been studying, when understanding came in a blazing light and all the pieces fell together effortlessly. He didn't think he'd be able to follow her into that world, certainly not now, but it hadn't stopped the yearning, felt far back in his mind, of wishing it could be.

Dean opened the door, ducking his head against the rain as he got out. The rear door opened and he pulled out the small gear bag that held everything they needed, flicking a look at his brother.

"You ready?"

Sam nodded. He was as ready as he was ever going to be. He'd flamed out once on the drive here, his brother's face impassive as Dean had waited for it to pass, but the told-you-so look in the green eyes when he'd come to, cold and clammy with the heat gone, and shaking from a coughing fit that had last several minutes.

Three ridges met in a crooked bird's track and they followed the middle one, boots saturated with liquid mud in minutes, the rock slippery underfoot. The valley formed by the meeting of the ridgelines was small and deep, the air close and unmoving in the shelter of the hills, and one end blocked by a smooth slab of rock, a fold of deeper granite that had been thrust up aeons before, and was inclined against the east-west run of the ridges and ravines. Water streamed down the face and pooled at the base, and Dean looked around sourly for anywhere he could light a fire to burn the ingredients that would convince the gate to open.

"Here," Sam said, crouching beside a small stretch of broken rock and gravel, far from dry but not actually sodden. Dean nodded and passed him the bag, walking down the slight slope to the trees that clustered between the other two ridges. Sam unpacked the bowls and knife and wrapped sachets of bone and crystal and herbs, grimacing at the feel of dried skin on his fingers as he pulled out the spell that had been written on it. He wondered briefly what his father would've thought of them using black magic to enter Hell, and shrugged the vague question aside. John had used whatever he'd needed to get the job and hadn't thought of the consequences. Looking up to see his brother returning with an armful of damp and dripping branches and twigs, it occurred to him that Dean would've kicked up about using a spell like this once. He too had abandoned his concerns over the lines between what was permissible as a soldier of good and what got the job done at the end of the day.

_Everything we do, everything we touch, leaves a mark – a stain – on us_. Marla's soft, faintly lilting voice wove through his thoughts. _It is impossible to think that using the darkest spells will not, in some way, taint us with their intent and their power, even if we attempt to use them for good purposes. Expediency has a way of biting back through consequences too far-reaching to be seen at the time_.

He felt a slight shiver thread down his spine. When she'd said it, in the library late one night, he'd argued that the good would outweigh the evil. She'd looked at him steadily.

_Sam, even with the best of intentions, what we use, what we touch, what we think and feel, all things leave their track on our souls. Knowledge cannot be unlearned, un-known once it has been acquired. You cannot un-see what you have seen._

_You're saying that what I've done, the choices I've made, I can never be free of them? he'd asked her reluctantly, his stomach clenching._

_You can be free of them, of course, she'd told him, her hands warm around his. Acceptance, penance, forgiveness and atonement will free you. But you've seen now. The things you've learned will remain. You cannot regain the innocence you had._

The conversation had been very similar to his talks with the Jesuit priest, and he'd looked at her face, filled with earnest certainty, wondering if she had discussed these things with him.

With the help of a few squirts of butane, the fire Dean laid leapt into life and he became aware that Dean was watching him, dragging his thoughts back to what they were doing.

"You here, man?" Dean asked quietly, that appraising look back in his eyes.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I – uh, yeah, I'm ready."

He put the bowl over the flames, tipping the sachets into it one by one. The bone and crystal blackened slowly, the herbs and dried scales, body fluids and crushed bark smouldered, sending a twisting ribbon of pale lavender smoke into the air.

The rain stopped. Dean looked around in surprise. It _was_ still raining, he saw, just no longer over them.

"That's … not creepy," he remarked to no one in particular, looking back at the bowl.

"Dean," Sam said slowly, feeling the warmth of the fire drying his face and hair. "Do you think that what we do – what we're doing here, now – is changing us? Corrupting us?"

He looked at his brother when he didn't respond. "Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean said, adding another twig to the fire. "Yeah, I think it is."

"Are we becoming what we used to hunt?"

"I don't know." The exhale was long, then Dean turned to look at him expressionlessly. "And you know what? It doesn't matter." He looked back at the bowl over the flames. "We know what we're supposed to do. That's enough."

"But –"

"Read the spell, Sam," Dean said sharply, twisting away and getting to his feet. "Just read it and open the damned gate."

Sam looked down at the dry and stiff skin in his hand. Archaic Latin, Jasper had told him. A bastardised version that had been in use since the Dark Ages. For this purpose, primarily. Witchcraft.

He stumbled over the words, knowing that he had to focus on the feeling as well – the desire to open the portals of Hell and enter – feeling his stomach churn and a tingling in his body, countered by a rising heat. The demon blood and its destroyer, he thought fleetingly, fighting over possession.

There was a groaning from deep in the earth, and a rising squeal and both men looked at the slab of rock in front of them, cracks opening to either side of a convex bulge in the face, a reddish light spilling out from the edges.

* * *

_**Huron National Park, Michigan**_

The pain was excruciating.

His bones and skin and muscle and tendons melted and reformed, pores expanding as the thick pelt fell out, claws dropping away, every cell burning white-hot with the enormous energy needed for the transformation. Lying on the thick, damp humus of the forest floor, Maurice struggled to breathe as his body returned to the shape of a man.

"The pain will pass."

The voice close by was deep and hoarse, and the hunter opened his eyes, rolling onto his back. Behind him, a man crouched by the tree trunk, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, long, thick black hair streaked with silver framing a wide-featured face, the cheekbones high, aquiline nose and heavy brow shadowing dark eyes, the skin smooth and dark gold, darker along the jawline and throat.

"Who're you?" Maurice asked, his mouth forming the words uncomfortably, as if he'd forgotten how to use his lips and tongue to speak.

The man grinned at him, the flash of white teeth showing incisors that were a little longer than human.

"You know who I am, hunter," he said, reaching out a hand as he rose to his feet.

"Raat," Maurice said, ignoring the outstretched hand and rolling onto his knees, every muscle aching and trembling but the heat dissipating fast and his skin goose-pimpling in the cool of the night air. "We thought you were still locked up."

Raat nodded, looking around the small clearing. Maurice followed his gaze as he heard the small noises surrounding them and several men walked out from behind the trees.

"No." The werewolf looked appraisingly over the men then turned back. "She came when the land was still locked in snow and ice and melted my prison and gave me her blood and brought me to freedom."

Months ago, Maurice thought. His stomach rumbled and he tried to ignore it, tried to ignore the staccato beat of his pulse against the base of his neck, the high-voltage charge that still coruscated through his nervous system. Watching the men, he realised belatedly that he could see them clearly, despite the wan light of the half-moon that barely filtered through the thin, spring canopy above them. And that he could not see colour, only black and white. Some of the changes were truly permanent. He could hear distant sounds. Could smell the individual scents of each of the men surrounding him, the new sap flowing in the trunks of the trees, and faintly, as a wandering breeze shifted through the clearing, the scent of a deer, far to the north.

"What do you want with the camps, Raat?" he asked, distancing and distracting himself from the sensations that were both utterly foreign and completely familiar.

Raat looked at him, the dark eyes lit slightly from behind even in his current form. "The Dark Mother walks the earth again, for the first time in almost forty thousand years, hunter. It means that this is our time again, when we are strong and many."

"Except that her other children are free too," Maurice said, tilting his head slightly as he gauged the monster's reactions. "And the human populations are small."

"They were small then too," Raat said, the scowl quickly hidden at the mention of the others. "They will grow and we will hunt them."

He looked at the men and jerked his head to one side. "Come, the settlements are a night's walk from here. They will not come into the woods after us again," he added, looking at Maurice with a wolfish grin. "We will feast on their hearts in their own dens."

He walked out of the clearing and into the trees, the men following him and Maurice trailing them a few yards behind. The silver bullets had hit the monster everywhere, and he could've sworn that at least one had penetrated the alpha's heart. He needed intel and he needed it fast, before they reached Tawas. It wouldn't matter if the wolves couldn't get into the camps if no one could reach the fields to plant the food that would sustain the population and their stock through the coming winter. They'd be forced into the forests to hunt for game and then Raat could pick them off at his leisure.

* * *

The first werewolf dropped back after an hour's walking, and Maurice noticed the others spread out a little, each taking a slightly wider track through the woods. He lengthened his stride, ignoring the aches as he caught up to the alpha.

"The silver didn't kill you," he said, his voice low as he matched the bigger man's stride.

Raat glanced at him. "No, I am too close to the Mother for silver to have the same effect on me as those of my get."

"Too close to the Mother?"

Raat slowed a little, gesturing vaguely at the woods surrounding them. "All things, all elements she is made of, iron and silver and gold and copper, the things that in concentration can kill us … or bind us. When she made me, she passed on some of those elements, they are in my blood. I am immune to them, you – you and the others – less so. As the generations are built from the lines, the toxicity becomes more powerful." He looked down at the hunter. "Your line will be strong, hunter. Your get could rule these northern woods, if you train them well."

Feeling his stomach roll over lazily, Maurice swallowed at the thought. He had always been honest with himself, about what he did, about how it felt. He thought it was the only way to stay sane in the business he'd chosen. That honesty told him that a part of him had revelled in the strength and power of being a wolf. Had been excited at the call of the moon and the night and the sound of the pack in full voice. He tried to keep that part away, pushed down. He was still a man. Still a hunter.

"The moon is but half-full," he said to the werewolf. "How can we transform without its power?"

"Ah, the moon fills us as it waxes," Raat answered slowly. "But we are powerful without her as well. The dark gift declines the further from the source it is."

"And silver alone cannot kill us?"

The monster looked at him narrowly. "It can kill you, if it finds its way to your heart."

"You alone are invincible?"

"Nothing is invincible," Raat snorted softly in the darkness. "Not even our Mother."

* * *

_**Hell**_

Sam looked around, seeing the river and the cliffs with a jolt of familiarity. The talisman Franklin had made was warm against his skin and he touched his fingertips to it, hoping that it would do as it was supposed to. He had two vials of the guardian's blood in his pocket, and he walked along the river bank, looking for the stones, wondering if there was a particular place he was supposed to pour it, or if it would work on any section of the high, black cliff walls.

The unfamiliar shape of the black sword hung against his hip, the end tapping his thigh as he walked. The black metal had killed the dog, cutting through the necks with ease, he thought. They would kill anything but an archdemon, but it was the archdemons that were loose now and would be difficult to avoid.

The river curved and he could see the stones, their tops flat and dry in the middle of the fast-flowing current. Every time, the river seemed different, he realised, walking to the bank near the first. Last time, the river had flowed sluggishly. His brother had told him that the water had been black, when he'd come in by himself. Now it was clear, sparkling in the not-quite-sunshine on this shore. Was it darker on the other side? He couldn't tell from this angle.

There was no more than a little over a yard between them and he crossed quickly, glancing down at the water as he made the far bank. The water remained clear and he could see through it to the bottom, a yellow-grey mud covered in water reeds with delicately curling tendrils.

Walking to the black and pitted cliff, he looked along its edge. Nothing leapt out at him as being different further down. The soil leading to the wall was a uniform dark grey, scattered with gravel, here and there puffs of steam escaping from deeper underground. He pulled out the first vial of the black liquid that had filled the veins of the guardian dog and drew out the glass stopper carefully. His skin had stung and blistered from contact with it before. Looking at the rock, he flicked his wrist and the blood splattered across the craggy surface, dripping from the edges. Sam stared at it, his hope fading as nothing seemed to happen. A drop hung from a deeper edge and fell, hitting the soil beneath. And the wall shuddered minutely, cracks opening to both sides.

The wash of relief stirred something else, a heat that slowly twisted and rose through his veins and he closed his eyes and set his jaw, willing the burning back. There was no way he could afford to lose it now, not here, not in this place. As the pulsing red light spilled out of the widening fissures, he felt the heat subside slowly and opened his eyes, looking down at his arms. It was dissipating, he thought, his gaze flicking back up to the opening door in front of him. The proximity to the plane that had originated the blood? Or something more sentient, living in him, recognising that now was not the time?

Neither thought was particularly comfortable and he pushed them aside, stepping through the door into the dark, carnelian light as soon as the opening was big enough. The pulsing was steady, and it was beating in time with his heart, he realised belatedly, ducking his head in the narrow tunnel. No. Not in time with it. Just a fraction of a second behind it. He felt his pulse falter slightly as it tried to adjust to the beat, slowing a little and the pulse of the plane changed again.

Leaning back against the wall, Sam tried to shut out his awareness of that rhythm. It would affect flesh and blood this way, he thought, attempting to control him, control whatever part of him allowed it. And it could kill him if he got lost in that pulsing throb. He walked down the tunnel and stopped as he came to an intersection. The new tunnel was much wider, much higher, the floors smoothed stone and the walls almost polished in places, rough in others.

Need to find this place again, he thought a little absently, putting his hand in his pocket and pulling out the first of the nine markers Franklin had made for him. The first one was gold, a triangular chip of the soft metal, marked simply with the numeral one. Looking along the uneven rock wall at his own eye-level, he tucked the chip into a shallow crevice. One meant his exit, he reminded himself.

There was no description of Lucifer's sword, no pictures or paintings, not even a written account in the few transcriptions the order and the other chapters had of encounters with the angels. He would have to make his way through the levels as the tablet had described them. The talisman, of titanium and gold and tantalum, smelted with sulphur and salt, was supposed to keep the layouts fixed for mortal incursion. There hadn't been any indication in the tablet or rather the parts Chuck had managed to translate, regarding the size of the levels, or the distances between them. Each level had a way through to the next. Sometimes they were gates, locked or open hadn't been specified. Sometimes they were portals, shifting through a trans-dimensional pocket to a different section of the accursed plane. Deirdre had shown him the three-dimensional renditions she'd calculated from the five-dimensional equations that the tablet had given. An archway leading from the second level to the third. A trap-door of some kind leading from the seventh level to the eighth. Closing his eyes, Sam reviewed the layout he'd memorised of the first level and turned to the right, following the long corridor that twisted this way and that, feeling the faint incline in the pull on the muscles of his legs and back.

He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, ignoring the movements he caught from the corner of his eye. Where the walls were smooth and polished, he could see through them. Nothing they showed were images he wanted in his head, he realised after he'd turned to look at the first one. The talisman might have hidden him, but the blood in his veins, the demon power in his cells, showed him the souls and the demons working on them. In the corridor, their screams were distant, muted and indistinct. Without knowing how he knew, he was sure that if he approached those reflective sections of wall and looked through deliberately, he would hear them – close and loud and in shocking detail.

No soul in this place is innocent, he told himself, lengthening his stride and hurrying down the hall. Closing the gates would lock the demons inside, but not prevent those souls who'd betrayed and tortured and killed from entering. The key had been in the transcripts, not of substance but of will. And faith. He wasn't sure he had enough faith.

Slowing as the tunnel ahead of him widened, Sam looked up involuntarily when the tunnel became a ravine, and the ravine opened into a broken plain. He stopped at the mouth of the defile, staring around him. Pools of acid sent clouds of pale yellow and blood-tinged steam into the air, and the screams that had been distant were all around him now, discordant and tormented, rising and falling over other sounds that were more frightening. The sky was close, thick with a roiling, oily-looking cloud cover, muted thunder and livid sheet lightning filling the deep-bellied nimbostratus. In every direction, the souls, retaining their memories of themselves in life, shredded and torn apart by the demons, were stretched out, hung up, tied and shackled and held.

_Dean. _

The thought flashed through Sam's mind as he watched a demon flaying the skin from a man held by his wrists and ankles, the four demons on the wheels at the corners of the rack tightening the screws with each lash of the razor-edged whip, the bones being pulled from the sockets incrementally and the face of the man elongated in an agony he could not escape from.

Above the plain, he could see the uneven and thundery light catching gleams and reflections from things that floated and hovered on the rising thermals. They were, even to him, mostly invisible, corporeal demons created by belief, never human, without souls, sustained by the blood and pain of the victims who were convinced of their existence.

_I shouldn't have lied to you. I do remember everything that happened to me in the Pit. Everything._

_So tell me about it. _

_No. I won't lie anymore. But I'm not gonna talk about it._

_Dean, look, you can't just shoulder this thing alone. You got to let me help._

_How? Do you really think that a little heart-to-heart, some sharing and caring, is gonna change anything? Somehow... heal me? I'm not talking about a bad day here. _

_I know that. _

_The things that I saw... there aren't words. There is no forgetting. There's no making it better. Because it is right here. Forever. You wouldn't understand. And I could never make you understand. So, I am sorry. _

He hadn't understood. He didn't know that he did now. No matter what he'd tried to imagine, no matter how he'd tried to envisage what it had been like – it wasn't enough. He looked around. It wasn't this.

Every soul saw Hell in the framework of their own worst fears and memories, he remembered suddenly, the pages of the translation coming back to him almost photographically. Every soul's mind, filled with the persistent and indelible memories of its past, saw their own keys to their torture. Sam's stomach churned as the knowledge of what his brother must have seen, must have felt, trickled into his thoughts.

The gate to the second level lay across the plain. None of the demons had noticed him. That was something, he thought unhappily. The talisman seemed to be working.

He looked at the ground, watching where he put his feet, keeping his eyes narrowed and focussed on the rock and trying to ignore the blood stains and the scraps of unidentifiable moist meat that littered it. The screaming filled his ears and the smell of brimstone, nauseating and overwhelming, filled his nose and mouth, but he kept walking, head down.

* * *

_**Strawberry Peak, Utah**_

Gadriel opened his eyes as he felt his feet touch ground and felt them widen. He'd known it would be a trap.

The room was broad and low-ceilinged, huge timber beams stretching across the width and a cold stone floor covered in circles that to his eyes glowed faintly in the dim light. Surrounding them were nephilim and cambion, he could perceive the gentle gleam of their souls, even as he could feel the cold nature of their hearts. The sword whistled through the air as he drew it and stepped forward, some part of his mind despairing at the numbers, understanding that he could not beat all of them.

Camael stepped clear of the circle as Lehmann lit the candles surrounding it. In the centre the Qaddiysh who controlled the demons of Hell stood, awareness fading from his eyes and face as the spell took hold of him, entwining the commands of the sorcerer into his thoughts, dispelling recent memory and searching for the recollections of older times, through the past when the commander had called upon armies of the damned and sent them into battle.

_There_. Lehmann smiled. _And there_.

Kokabiel nodded, his face smooth and expressionless as he slowly knelt in the centre of the circle and began the ritual, his movements precise with the ease of long, long familiarity.

Gadriel slashed at the man whose sword had blocked his, strong wrists twisting the other's weapon, the sharp clatter on the stone drowned out as the _Irin_'s sword slid between the ribs and levered sharply down, opening a wide enough space for his hand to squeeze in and grasp the heart, and the nephilim's scream rose in the enclosed space. He was already turning, the heart flung from him as his sword rose again, sweeping aside the blade aimed for his heart and stepping close to the young woman, his hand gripping her throat as he slashed from diaphragm to pelvis, releasing her and thrusting his hand up into the breached cavity.

The sword that entered his back was a curving scimitar of Arabic origin, the blade widening abruptly from hilt to tip. He gasped as he felt it go in, his fingers scrabbling at the smooth, hot organs surrounding his hand, and felt the world disappear as the blade twisted through his spine.

* * *

The vampire listened to the clash of metal and the shouts and screams from the other side of the wall. He would not get a diversion of their attention as good as this, he thought, flexing his arms against the bite of the chain. Silver. As if that could hold him, his Mother's son. The women were here and he would need some of them, to strengthen him and to prevent the fallen angels from being able to complete the ritual that would bind him.

The nephilim looked at each other as the sounds got louder, the young woman finally shaking her head and drawing her sword as the young man nodded to her. Neither noticed the creaking from the cell, as the metal links stretched and stretched under the duress of the creature's strength, the soft noise lost under the clocking of her bootsoles as she half-ran to the doorway and left.

"Give me your arm," the young man said, grabbing the thin and needle-pocked arm of the next woman in the line. She stumbled toward him, her other arm clutched protectively over her belly, as he dragged her closer.

"Give me your throat."

The warm, deep baritone said behind him. He dropped the woman's arm and spun around as hands of extraordinary strength caught his shoulders and pulled into a close embrace with the creature standing there. Usiku smiled and his head snapped forward, mouth fastening on the side of the nephilim's neck, bristling with fangs. The line of women barely had time to take in what had happened, when he dropped the drained body, the fair skin of the young man now completely white, eyes open and staring.

"I need you," the vampire said the woman standing beside the table, his hand extended out to her. She looked at him and shook her head, long, lank hair covering her face as she backed away a step.

Behind her, the tall red-haired woman stepped out. "You're getting out of here?"

"I am."

"Are you going to kill us?"

He smiled. "No, my dear, you are too precious to kill. I will drink from you, a little each day, never enough to harm you or your children," he said, looking at the gravid swell of her abdomen. "I promise you that."

"Take me with you," she said, hiding the trembling fear she felt as he moved in an eyeblink to stand next to her. She looked at the women behind her, gesturing abruptly around the room. "Anything would be better than this? Waiting for them to kill us and our babies?"

The vampire watched them. The once-lovely dark-haired woman stepped up behind the red-head, nodding her agreement, her eyes on him. Behind her, the fair one also nodded and crowded close to the other two. He looked to the back of the line. The new woman had moved away from them, along with two others.

"Do you want to die then?" he asked her, glancing at the others. "They will kill you when I am gone, you will be of no further use to them."

"I'll take my chances," she said, her voice barely a whisper.

"As you wish." He inclined his head and looked back at the small group who would come voluntarily. "Come close, and make no sound."

There was no transition. He enfolded them in his arms and they were gone.

The five women left looked around the empty room then at each other.

"We have to get out of here," the woman who'd refused the vampire said. "He was right about them killing us if they find him gone."

"That one," the smallest of them said, pointing to the dead nephilim on the floor. "I overhead him talking to the other woman with him, said that there were caves here, all through these mountains. Maybe we could find a place to hide?"

"Better than being beaten and drained and starved here, Carly," the tallest agreed, looking at the rest. "How do we get out of here?"

"There's another door there." The woman pointed to the shadowy back wall. "I don't think it can be a part of the basement, it's the wrong direction."

"We're either living on borrowed time or we've got a chance of getting out of here, Jane," Carly said decisively. "If I'm going to die, I think I'd rather be on my feet and running away."

"Let's go." Jane walked across the room to the door.

* * *

_**Sioux Falls, South Dakota**_

Dean moved around the space in front of the rock, pouring out a light grey powder from a long, thin cloth sack. It was the third circle he'd surrounded the gate with and he thought that between them, they'd probably hold back anything that tried to get through the crack that the spell had left open.

On the fire, the ingredients were still smouldering. _As long as the smoke rises, the gate stays open_, Jerome had told him. Probably how the other one had been held open, he thought vaguely, although neither he nor Cas had seen any signs of a fire or smoke in the cemetery.

Fluttering at the back of his mind, the knowledge that Sam was going to see Hell, see what happened down there, lurked uncomfortably. The brief summary he'd managed to tell him, after seeing the way that girl had been twisted into something not human by her own father, had been dragged out purely because he couldn't keep in his head any longer, couldn't face the fear, of having turned into something else, on his own. He'd learned that his brother wasn't the right person to tell. They'd been too close, but not close enough. And Sam had been trapped in the chaotic vortex of his own power, filled with confusion and fear and driven by the need to make it all mean something.

Those memories, those grinding emotions, that had tortured him even once he'd been out, hadn't been forgotten or even buried all that well. A lot of their power had been removed, though, he thought as he looked around the still valley, moving to the edge of the circle that protected the fire and the spell. In some ways it was as if they were now memories from a different lifetime. Distant finally. Something he could get away from now. He veered away from the thoughts surrounding that recognition with practised ease and wondered a little bleakly what he was going to do if Sam didn't come back through the gate.

The beating of wings brought him to his feet instantly, swinging around with the black sword in one hand and the automatic in the other as he stared at the softly glowing construct that stood behind him.

"Cas?"


	20. Chapter 20 Under Creeping Shadow

**Chapter 20 Under Creeping Shadow**

* * *

_**June 23, 2013. Sioux Falls, South Dakota**_

The light faded from the seraphim, the gloom returning to the clearing and Dean slid the black sword back through his belt, returned the automatic to his pocket as he looked at Castiel. The construct wasn't exactly Jimmy's face or body, but the shape of the eyes was the same, the irises the familiar deep, oceanic blue. The angel was taller, broader across the shoulders than Novak was, and the wings, polished brass graduating down to a tawny gold through the feathers, suited the angel in some weird way he couldn't quite get his mind around.

"What happened?" he asked, anger stirring down below the emptiness.

"It was all a trap," Castiel said. Apology deepened his voice as he looked at the hunter. "Gabriel was diverted to this plane, and I have been – held – for the last ten weeks."

"We lost people, Cas," Dean said tersely. "A lot of people because you left before –"

"I know," Castiel acknowledged. "I'm sorry. There was nothing I could do to remain here when the summons came."

"Right." Dean took a deep breath and turned away from him. It didn't matter now. "What do you want?"

"The Qaddiysh called us," Cas said, walking after him. He wasn't surprised by Dean's anger or the withdrawal he felt. He'd watched him change, slowly, almost unobtrusively, in the relationship, had watched him deal with things he'd never thought the hunter would deal with and become stronger through that gradual process. And he'd known that Dean wouldn't be the same when he'd heard what had happened.

"The archangel Camael visited them, told them that an army was being raised."

"Yeah, Chuck's had visions about it," Dean said, looking down at the fire. He picked up a small branch and dropped it on the coals.

"I believe that Camael took Kokabiel to raise the demons from Hell, to make that army," Cas said, stopping a few feet from him. "The Grigori have been searching for people."

"You think another one of the arcs finked out on you?" Dean asked, his tone unsurprised.

"I'm almost sure of it," Cas confirmed. "Kokabiel has the power to raise more than a hundred thousand demons from the pit, Dean. If they find vessels, they could overrun the earth in a matter of weeks. The Grigori have been raising the dead."

Dean exhaled sharply, looking over his shoulder at the angel. "This is your mess, all of it," he said, his voice deep and harsh. "Sam and me, we got a job to do and we have to finish it. Tell Michael to get the rest in order, you don't need me."

"You're right," Cas said. "This is Heaven's mess. It has been from the beginning. But it will be your people the army attacks, Dean. The Grigori need the demon tablet. They believe that they will be able to find the angel tablet with it. They will not kill all those in the settlements but they will enslave them."

"Then tell Michael to get his ass down here and fix it!"

"Outright war, between Heaven and the rebels, between Heaven and Hell, would bring down the pillars, Dean," Cas said, his expression tense. "Michael cannot –"

"Can't," Dean snapped, staring at the angel. "Won't. Doesn't matter, does it? Who put Lucifer down after your fucking angels manipulated everyone to get him released? Who went and got the goddamned tablet out of Crowley's hands? What do I get out of this, Cas? What do I ever get out of cleaning up the catastrophic mess Heaven keeps making?" He took a long stride closer to the angel. "Sam's in Hell, trying to get Lucifer's sword; if he finds it and he doesn't get wiped out by an archdemon down there, he's still got another trial to finish and the contract is killing him." He dragged in a deep breath. "So – tell me, where the fuck's my payoff?"

The angel dropped his gaze under the man's cold glare. A memory of a building, painted sigils and symbols and wards over walls and ceilings and floor, this man staring at him, the anger and defiance a mask for the fear held back, underneath, filled his mind. At the time, he'd been confused by the fear, which had escalated when he'd told him why he'd been raised. It was only after he'd begun to get to know the hunter that he'd seen that Dean had never wanted any of it.

"What the hell does he expect me to do anyway?" Dean said, a moment later, his voice even again.

Cas looked up at him, seeing the impassive face and sighing inwardly. "You could raise an army to fight the demons, here on the earthly plane before they reach Kansas."

The image flickered through Dean's mind again, the mountains and the wide plain, thousands of feet marching in unison. He shoved it aside as the angel's words sank in.

"Christ, Cas, I couldn't raise a fucking posse now," he said, mouth twisting up derisively, as he swung his arm out widely in the vague direction of Kansas. "The last couple of months …" he trailed off, shaking his head as he realised he did not want to go into that with the angel. "No one is going to fight on my say-so. Not now. Find someone else."

"There is no one else, Dean," Castiel said. "I think you're wrong. I think they'll follow you if you make plain the consequences of doing nothing."

"Yeah, well, everyone's entitled to an opinion."

"This is not just opinion –"

"Cas, even if I wanted to help – and I'm not convinced why I should – whatever trust those people had in me, that's gone," Dean cut him off abruptly, his voice hardening. "They've got new leaders, and in case it didn't sink in when I said it earlier, Sam and me, we've got the gates to close."

"The gates are not the important thing now, Dean!"

Dean stared at him. "That's not how I see it."

"The archdemons are loose," the angel pressed, his wings lifting slightly in his agitation. "You can't defeat them – they'll kill you both. The archdemons are the problem of Heaven, but the Grigori –"

Behind them a howl issued from the crack in the rock, rising rapidly to a drilling scream and both man and angel swung around.

* * *

_**Tawas Lake, Michigan**_

The sight of the pulsing heart tore at him, the deer's liquid dark eyes rolling back as he ripped through the thick, curved ribs. _The first generations of the children of Nintu can live on the hearts of animals, the curse strong enough to overcome the lack of a human connection. Later generations will slowly become more disoriented and animalistic if forced on the same diet_. The old text of the books Tilly and Vince had brought back from New Mexico rolled through the still-human part of Maurice's mind as he stared down at the beating muscle.

His hand reached into the broken cavity and closed around the heart, pulling it free of the attached arteries and veins and biting into it, before the thoughts of what he was doing stopped him completely, uncaring of the splash of blood that covered his face.

"Well done, hunter," Raat said with a low chuckle from behind him. "Food is food and all things must die eventually, there is little point to sentimentality when hunger tears and the fair goddess has provided enough for all."

The rich, dark meat was devoured quickly and Maurice licked his fingers, wiping the dripping blood from his mouth and chin with the back of his hand.

"Why do the later generations need human hearts when we can live off animals?" he asked the werewolf, swivelling around to look at him.

Raat blinked slowly at him, the soft glow of his eyes in the deep sockets brightening momentarily. "The dark gift is a mystery, even to me, hunter," he said, leaning closer to the man. "But do not make the mistake of thinking that we can live from animals indefinitely. Survive, yes. We would be wolves only if that was all that was required to sustain us. And wolves we would become if that is all we feed on. The human heart is connected to the human mind. And the mind is what we really live on – hope and dreams and fears and uncertainties, belief and faith and all those things that animals do not have, cannot produce because their souls have not the divine spark we call imagination."

"So a werewolf must feed on human hearts?"

"Yes," Raat said. "Or we become the animals and lose all vestiges of our own souls."

"By killing people, we've already lost our own souls," Maurice countered bitterly.

"Semantics, hunter," the werewolf said with a cold smile. "Imagination is needed to rule the night and the shadows, and wolf alone cannot."

"Your life is killing and more killing, Raat." Maurice rose to his feet, looking at the woods. They were close to Tawas, too close. "That isn't ruling. It's just gluttony."

The deep growl reverberated in the alpha's chest and he looked at Raat pityingly. "Nothing can kill you and you will go on and on, building nothing, only destroying. That's what you want?"

"My blood kills me, hunter," Raat snarled at him. "And my get are not loyal, preferring to form their own lines, preferring to hunt the darkness alone."

"That's what your Mother planned for you, Raat," Maurice told him, keeping his voice steady, hiding the flash of excitement at the monster's words. "Did you think it was really about kingdoms and a loving populace throwing themselves at your feet?"

The transformation was complete in an eye-blink and the hunter felt his heart rate accelerate as he looked defiantly into the golden eyes of the huge wolf in front of him. Animal and man stared at each other for a long moment, then Raat turned away, bounding silently into the forest, black pelt, threaded with silver, dissolving into the shadows beneath the trees without a trace.

_My blood kills me_, he thought, looking back down at the body of the deer at his feet. Silver plus the blood of the alpha? He had to get to the camps, find out if the lore Santos had collected over his lifetime had any indication of how that could be done. Lifting his head, he could smell them, his pack brothers, ranging through the thick forest. He needed something to hide himself from them, strong enough to hide man-scent and wolf-scent. Raat would certainly kill him if he thought he was going to help the camps.

* * *

_**Hell**_

The second level of Hell was a maze. Sam realised the fact when he passed his marker twice. He didn't think the level was moving around him, or changing in any way. He stopped at the edge of the cavern by the broken gates and looked around carefully. He'd taken the tunnel on the other side that opened to the left of the steaming pool of acid. This time he'd take the tunnel to the right.

_From the first level to the second, the way passed through the obsidian gates_, he remembered Jerome's instructions, drawn from Chuck's transcriptions. The gates were smashed when Heaven laid siege to Hell to rescue Dean. They were never rebuilt, according to the guides the order had spoken to. He'd found them easily enough, the sight stirring his imagination with visions of angels and demons in battle. _In front of those gates, Michael had fought and defeated an archdemon and driven the Horde before him, making the way clear for the smaller unit of angels led by Castiel to move down through the levels where the soul of Dean Winchester had been held_.

Shaking his head, Sam pushed his disjointed memories of the histories aside, and concentrated on keeping to a more or less single direction in the labyrinthine tunnels. The chitter of the almost-invisible demons and the scrape of their claws over the rocks above him flooded his body with adrenalin. It seemed too easy that he could see them – after a fashion – and they could not perceive him walking through their domain.

_When I was down there, just a soul, there were no tunnels_. _I was in one place and then in another_, Dean had told him on the drive to South Dakota, picking and choosing through his memories for things that might have been of use to his brother. _When I got in to get the tablet and the gun, it was different. There were corridors and caverns, and I had to have a clear picture of what I was after to get anywhere_. Sam remembered his brother's account of the corridors that looked identical and had kept him circling.

He came to a dead-end and stared in frustration at the smooth blank wall. The tunnels were full of them, there was nothing to do but retrace his steps until he found another turning and take that. His watch had stopped the minute he'd stepped through the gate and time seemed elastic here, moving faster or slower in a way he could sense but couldn't prove. He wasn't hungry, but the dry air and the noxious fumes that filled the tunnels were making him thirsty. He wondered how long he'd been in here, a fleeting recollection of Ellen's research on mortals who'd become lost forever on this plane flashing unwelcomed through his thoughts.

The tunnel opened into a huge cavern and he stopped, staring at the soft sand that covered the floor, the stalactites and stalagmites that rose like stately columns to a ceiling he couldn't see. It was completely empty, the winds that filled the tunnels and caves and holes in the rest of the level gone. Somewhere he could hear the drip of water. In the centre of the cavern, an uneven arch of rock stood, and he remembered that the doorway to the third level was through it.

Striding across the floor, Sam held his breath as he passed under the arch.

Darkness enveloped him, holding him close. There was no air, no sound. Colours flickered through the black, catching his peripheral vision but gone when he tried to stare straight at them. He couldn't move and his chest was burning with the need to breathe.

Then it was gone and he stumbled as he dropped a short distance, the ground of this level lower than that of the second level, catching himself before he pitched headlong to the cracked and fissure rock.

He was again in an enormous space, open but ringed with high black rock, the fast-moving grey and black clouds, tinged with yellow and green, boiling and churning above him. Great nets of tensioned wire were stretched over the space, and Sam swallowed as he saw what hung from them, the wind whipping away the screams and pleas and begging. Looking down, he saw a line of hills to one side and turned to them, clamping his teeth shut on the nausea rising in his throat.

Seven valleys, interlocking and leading ever downward, covered from ridge to ridge with vast wire nets to hold the damned. Following the incline, Sam narrowed his eyes and his focus to the ground immediately in front of him.

_It was four months up here, but down there ... I don't know. Time's different. It was more like forty years. They sliced and carved and tore at me in ways that you ... until there was nothing left. And then, suddenly ... I would be whole again ... like magic ... just so they could start in all over._

The fragment of memory, his brother's voice raw and thick, slipped through the guard he tried to hold firm. And behind it, his own voice, the memory of howling in pain and anguish when he'd realised what was happening to Dean, what had happened to him, what it had cost. _I can never undo what I've done. Can never atone or pay enough for the choices I made. He gave up everything and I took the wrong path and I never looked back_.

_Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My sin is pride and I can't heal my brother, and I can't see anything but despair in his eyes now_.

He stopped as he reached the high rocky wall, staring into the wide, black tunnel that led downward. Why? Why did it have to be Dean? Why had he been forced into giving up himself?

Maybe he wasn't forced. _Those were his choices. He made them as you made yours. To do what he thought was right, what was best_. Had he known where they would lead he still would've made them. Except, Sam thought bitterly, Dean would never have gotten off the rack if he'd known about the seal. That was the only choice he would've made differently.

And him? What would he have done differently? Killed Jake, when he'd stood over him with the iron spike in his hand? It'd been his fine sensibilities on the sanctity of human life that had been the catalyst, the crux where the lines had joined and they could've taken a different path, Dean could've been spared Hell and everything that had kick-started for his brother and for himself. And when he thought of what he'd done to Jake, the next time he'd seen him … the futility of it all speared through him like a blade of rusty steel.

_Not now_, he told himself, trying to fight his own growing despair with anger, _get through the level_. _Get through the abyss and across the lake and the wastelands and get the goddamned sword. You might not be able to ever get his forgiveness but you can do what you started, you can finish this place and make sure no demon ever gets out again_.

He felt the winds rising, warm and thick and rank in his face, smelled the metallic burn and the brimstone and the odd scent of the soldier demons, an odour of mouldy leather and molten copper. The divisional point between the upper and lower levels, the abyss of the daeva was just ahead.

The sensation was, at first, subtle, and he didn't realise that it came from outside of him, not from his own thoughts and feelings. It grew stronger and he stopped, looking around in confusion before he remembered what it meant. A draining sensation. A desolation and a hopelessness.

_Archdemon._

The last ridge and tunnel were a few more yards in front of him, but he had the feeling that was the way the Fallen would be coming. He saw the jumble of broken boulders and jagged rock a moment later, racing across the fractured ground to reach the pile before the demon came through. The talisman might have hidden him, but he wasn't certain of that, and dying here wasn't an option.

Falling to his knees, Sam crawled into the narrow cleft between two immense rocks, feeling his energy draining away from him, struggling to keep himself moving through the mire of despairing thoughts that filled his mind. The black blade grated over the rock and he froze, gripping the hilt and lifting it as he edged deeper into the small space between the stones, his free hand rising and gripping the pendant around his neck tightly, trying to ignore the rising heat he could feel in his hands and feet, around the joints of shoulder and knee and hip. _Not now, please, not now_, he thought desperately.

Through a narrow crack between the boulders, he could just see the entrance to the tunnel that led to the abyss. In the darkness something moved, and he squinted slightly, trying to make out the shifting shape that emerged slowly, the winds fluttering torn black cloth, pressing the thin fabric against a skeletal form.

Before Lucifer had his first human soul, he tortured those who Fell with him. Was it Jerome or Jasper who'd told him that? For a thousand years the Fallen were tormented and twisted, until the very frequencies of their celestial origin had been altered and nothing remained of the light that had once filled them, and all that left was hatred and pain and the desire to swallow the lands and seas in a darkness that would have no end.

The creature moved out of the tunnel slowly, head turning from side to side within the black hood, a hand, stripped of meat, just bone and tendon, lifting slightly from the black robe and gesturing impatiently to the demons that swarmed around it.

It stopped abruptly and Sam held his breath as its gaze seemed to focus sharply on his hiding place. _The human mind is powerful_, his father's voice said quietly in his head. _Just focussing on something too hard or for too long can draw its attention to you, even animals can feel that concentration_. Screwing his eyes shut, Sam thought of a song, a song he'd used to hear in California, a song that swept him away from the tight, dark crevice and the eerie regard of the demon and diffused the focus that had drawn its attention to him.

The draining sensation dissipated gradually. He couldn't look, couldn't open his eyes to check that the demon had really gone. He hid in his memories, the song a wall between him and the reality he was in, arms wrapped around his knees and his face buried against them.

* * *

_**Strawberry Peak, Utah**_

Julian Lehmann stood in the shadows of the basement room, his pale face lit by the flickering candle flames and the eldritch glow of the active circles, looking coldly at the Qaddiysh who knelt in the centre.

Harrer stood beside him, thick brows drawn together. "He believes that he still the liaison with Hell?"

"Yes," Lehmann said, a small smile curving his mouth. "Yes, he believes that he is in Heaven, and that God has commanded him to raise the demons from the Pit, to raise an army to counteract the wickedness of mankind." He blinked and turned to Harrer. "How many do we have now?"

"Felice returned with five hundred and forty, from Washington. We're expecting Marius and the boy back soon."

"And the women?"

Harrer dropped his gaze. "The door was a part of the old fortifications," he said slowly. "It led down to the wine cellar under the older part of the house, and from there, there are several tunnels, leading into the caves. We haven't found them yet."

Julian turned away from him abruptly. "Stay here, watch over him," he snapped over his shoulder. "When we have enough, I will need to be here."

Harrer nodded, relief filling him as he heard the footsteps recede.

Following the narrow and low-ceilinged hall down to the sub-level holding the cells, Julian seethed as he considered the vampire's escape. The lore had stated that it had needed the blood of the dark mother to regain the strength after its long imprisonment. They had taken Usiku from his prison well before Nintu could get there, and had fed him the blood of the women, thinking it would strengthen the first vampire slowly, give them time to prepare the ritual of binding, time to build a cage that could hold the monster. Obviously, the blood had had a greater effect than they'd realised.

It was, he decided when the anger had cooled slightly, a bearable loss – for the moment. The cambion had found the vampire once, they would be able to do so again, once the Demon Master had brought forth the demons they needed to animate their army. The old prophecy had proved quite an inspiration, and it would be a sufficient obfuscation to ensure the demons that Kokabiel raised would fight to the death. Crowley had been unable to command such loyalty.

He stopped in the centre of the long room and looked dispassionately at the floor. Blood still stained the stone where Alec had been killed. Beyond the stain, the door that led down and into the caves stood open, a dark rectangle into the depths of the mountain. Usiku had taken the women and his fledglings. He was not then strong enough yet, Julian thought. He would hide until he regained his strength, until he was ready. It gave them some time.

Tilting his head slightly, he became aware of activity above. Marius must have returned, he thought distantly. The older cambion was shrewd and talented but nowhere near the class of Hubertus. That loss rankled deeply. It'd taken a long time for them to find and execute the spells of summoning and binding on the half-breeds and they grew up too quickly, their powers diminishing year by year. Hubertus had been useful in many ways. He needed time, he realised with a pang of ironic humour, more than the three thousand years he'd spent down here on this stinking rock. Time to study for the means to release the cambion from the mirror. Time to bind the first children to his will. Time to find the tablet that would enable them to go home.

* * *

Lee looked in disbelief around the compound, head pounding and nausea slopping up his throat. The boy … he remembered the boy smiling at him, then nothing, a black void, a jarring sensation of falling, his ears aching then popping and this.

Milling in confusion, filling the square, he saw everyone was here, from Archie, the oldest of the survivors he and Krissy had found, to Melissa with her newborn infant still held in the sling over her shoulder, faces slack with the same incredulity he felt, weapons gone, disorientation in every pair of eyes he could see.

"What happened, Dad?" Krissy whispered beside him, the fourteen-year old pressing against him for reassurance.

"I don't know, baby," he said, forcing himself to look past his people, to the high stone walls surrounding them, razor-wire glinting evilly in the bright, clear sunshine. In the southern wall, high metal gates were tightly closed. "I don't know."

He saw Seth, pivoting in place and walked slowly to him. "You got that little pig-sticker you carry in your boot?"

Seth stared at him for a moment then shook his head. "Haven't got anything, not even the wire I had threaded through the seam of my jacket," he told him in a low voice. "This demon work?"

"I don't know," Lee said, looking at the men who stood on the square platforms at the corners of the compound. "They don't look human."

Following his gaze, Seth saw the tall figures, broad-shouldered and long-haired, his eyes narrowing as he belatedly took in the symmetrical perfection of their features. "What the fuck are they?"

"Nephilim."

Both men turned to look at the old man who stood behind them. Archie jerked his chin toward the closest tower. "Children of the fallen."

"What do you know about this, Arch?" Seth asked, frowning at him.

"Not enough," Archie said, his gaze settling on Lee, the pale grey eyes watery. "Not enough to help you plan a way out here against them."

"Then what?" Lee asked. Any information would be more than he had right now, he thought sourly.

"I told you when you found me, Lee," Archie said quietly. "I was a writer."

"Yeah." Seth shifted impatiently. "And?"

"Made a living from fiction," Archie continued, refusing to be hurried. "Did a lot of research into a lot of stuff." He looked back at the platform. "I got interested in the religious mythology, and I studied it for a few years. The Book of Enoch, the heretical or non-canonical texts that pre-dated the Old Testament."

"This better have a point, Arch," Lee said softly.

"When the sons of God fell, they took human women as their wives and had families. The offspring were known as the nephilim, the children of human and angel," he said. "There were a lot of legends around them, but the juicy ones were hard to find. God sent the Flood to wipe them out, when he decided that it was no way for angels to be behaving."

"Then what are they doing here?"

"Didn't manage to get all of them," Archie said with a slight smile. "They were tall and perfect, like angels. Only way to kill them was to cut out the heart. They were capricious and cruel, looking down on pure humans and looked down upon by pure angels. Made for a lot of trouble through our history."

"Why are they here?" Lee asked, his gaze flicking up to the platform.

"End of the world, limited populations, maybe they're figuring on re-establishing themselves as a ruling class?" Archie shook his head. "I don't know, Lee. What I do know is that this is trouble with a capital 'T'."

"Tell me something I don't know," Seth grumbled.

"Do you remember any weaknesses? Anything we can use?" Lee asked.

Archie shrugged. "A few, but I don't think we can use them."

"Great," Krissy snapped. "We know what they are but we can't do anything about it?"

The gates on the southern wall of the closed-in compound opened, and they turned to watch as more people walked into the square. Lee felt his eyes widen as he took in the number, all with the same dazed expressions as his own people were wearing.

"What the hell is going on?"

Archie looked past him and shook his head. "They're collecting us, for some reason."

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Bobby glanced at his watch surreptitiously, acutely aware he'd been away from the keep for more than two hours and feeling the antsy prickle of his worries beginning to bite deeper. On the other side of the long, polished table, Elias and Rufus were also shifting restlessly in their chairs, listening to the latest of Chuck's fragmented visions.

"_When the army poured out of the narrow pass at the foot of the mountains, the great plain was empty, the gold and silver grasses bowing before the capricious breeze like the long steady waves of an inland sea_," Jerome read. "_The pale man lifted his arm as he looked over the land, his laughter snatched away. The shadow was deep and black, and under it, nothing moved_."

"This army, of the Grigori's," Rufus said, looking at Jerome. "Chuck get a number?"

"No," Jerome answered shortly. "Just that it is 'thousands'."

"Not real helpful," Bobby said caustically, pushing his cap higher. "Alright, this is – what? – the third or fourth vision we've had concerning the army?"

"Yes, the fourth fragment," Jerome confirmed. "I don't think there's any doubt that is what the Grigori are doing."

"And they're heading here?" Elias asked. "For sure?"

"They need the demon tablet," Baraquiel interjected from the other side of Jerome. "They believe it holds the key to the whereabouts of the angel tablet. I don't believe they will kill this population, but they will subjugate it."

"But the wards and guards Chuck's already translated – the protection that Liev has been building into the new walls, that'll stop them from being able to overrun us," Elias said, looking from Jerome to the Qaddiysh. "I mean the demons couldn't cross the walls before, and the new stuff is a helluva lot more powerful."

"A siege would defeat us as thoroughly as a full attack would," Baraquiel said quietly. "We have almost five thousand people within the keeps and farms, and that number will double, at least, soon. Without being able to harvest the crops that were put in, to take of the stock that you have brought here, starvation will drive the people to surrender."

"Not for a while," Elias argued, glancing at Jackson. "We've got stockpiles."

"No," Penemue said. "Not for a while, but without a countering force the end result will be the same. And it would be better for the people here to have the battle as far away as possible."

"What if the boys get the gates closed?" Bobby asked.

Baraquiel looked at Penemue and shrugged. "We don't know."

Rufus watched Bobby scowl and turned to Jerome. "The reason Chuck isn't seeing an opposing army – is that because we haven't raised one, or because we don't?"

Jerome scratched his brow, looking at him. "That's an interesting question, actually. Chuck's visions have changed – or evolved – depending on what has been happening with the lines. And the man who changes them. I believe that what he's seeing at the moment is not set – that's the reason for the fragmentation, that he sees only possibilities, not actualities."

"But he's not seeing Dean or Sam at all right now?" Elias asked.

"No," Jerome confirmed. "So far, both men have been absent from even the most fractured visions."

"What the hell does that mean?" Rufus demanded, the unease he felt at the way the conversation was going rising sharply.

"We don't know," Jerome told him. "He hasn't had another vision of the gates or the archdemons. There could be a number of possible reasons for that."

"Including that they die in the attempt," Bobby said tightly.

Jerome looked at him. "Including that."

"What else do we need to know about?" Jackson said, clearing his throat. "We got a message from Boze about the werewolf, did anyone find out anything else about it?"

"Katherine and Marla have been going through the library Tilly brought back from New Mexico," Jerome said, gesturing to the other end of the library absently. "Everything we've learned of the first werewolf we've sent to Tawas. There are some unsubstantiated and vague hints about killing Raat, but we're still tracking the sources on those."

"Boze swears that the silver didn't miss the heart, but the wolf didn't die," Rufus said.

Jerome nodded. "That's what we're trying to track back," he told the hunter. "The protection that Nintu laid over the first monsters had what we think is a single weakness – a vulnerability to her blood, to the blood that flows in them. If we can any verification, however slim, it might make the difference."

"Any word on Maurice?" Bobby asked.

"No, I'm sorry." Jerome looked down at the table. The loss of the hunter had been a huge shock to everyone who'd started out in Chitaqua. "We had word from the French, this morning. Luc and Marc have been following a massive zombie army, through Italy over the past few days."

"Italy?" Elias asked, brows rising. "I thought they were heading for France?"

"They turned east," Jerome said. "We're not sure why, but the hunters confirmed that nine of the Grigori and several nephilim are travelling with them. They crossed into the Balkans a day ago, and appear to be heading for Turkey."

Baraquiel straightened in his chair, looking at his brother. "They are either heading for us or positioning themselves for the tablet."

Penemue nodded his agreement. "It will take them months."

"We need to warn the others," Baraquiel insisted, the deep, normally tranquil baritone rising. "They must have time to prepare."

Penemue looked away. "We came here with a purpose, Baraquiel, and until that purpose is completed, we will not leave."

Rufus watched the red-haired angel's face twist in anger, saw the beautifully-shaped mouth thin out as he repressed whatever it was he'd been about to say. He didn't have to say it anyway, the hunter thought wearily. They all knew what had caused the delays in the capturing and imprisoning of the creative forces that the Qaddiysh had come here for. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he realised that they were running out of allies.

Bobby's face tightened as he watched the expressions of those seated around the table. "Dean was right to go after the gates first," he said abruptly, daring anyone to argue with him about it. "Shutting out the hellspawn reduces everyone's risk."

Penemue looked at him steadily. "We do not," he began, glancing at Baraquiel, "presume to question the decisions that have been made for the human population, Bobby. We Fell to safeguard mankind as well, our goals in these matters are aligned."

"Good to hear," Bobby admitted unwillingly.

Turning to his brother, Penemue said, "Father Emilio discovered a spell that may allow us to contact the others without risk to those here." He waited for Baraquiel's gaze to meet his and nodded slightly as the _Irin_'s shoulders relaxed, his anger draining away. Turning back to the hunters, he gestured in the direction of the keep. "Our loyalty is not in question. But the population here may not follow the Winchesters into battle, particularly after the last skirmish they had with a demon-possessed army."

Rufus watched Bobby drop his gaze to the table, saw Elias' expression become stony. Neither was going to argue the point, he realised. They lived in the keeps, heard the popular opinions and despite the best efforts of Jackson, Riley and Liev, there was a growing dissatisfaction in the people here.

* * *

_**June 25, 2013. West Keep, Kansas**_

Rufus stopped the engine and sat in the truck, staring blankly at the wall in front of him, his thoughts churning uneasily around the same track they'd been on all morning, no closer to getting it clear than he'd been four hours ago at the order.

What the fuck was he doing, he wondered bleakly for the fiftieth time. He should never have let Dean take off with Sam in the middle of everything that was going on in the settlements right now, should never've let him convince them that the people could choose their own leaders.

Getting out of the truck reluctantly, he looked up as Franklin came hurrying across the bailey toward him.

"Glad to catch you," the stocky hunter said shortly. "Got some trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Rufus asked, following him toward the tunnel that led to the southern bailey.

"Civil unrest," Franklin said as he disappeared into the gloom of the tunnel, his boots echoing loudly from the concrete walls and floor and ceiling. "Got half my boys keeping an eye on things, but we need to give them a united front on this."

"On what?" Rufus lengthened his stride to keep up.

They came out of the tunnel and Rufus looked around the open space. It was filled with people, most standing and watching, some calling out. Pushing through the crowd, Franklin bulled his way to the centre, pausing beside a young man in fatigues.

"Mick, go get Danielle and tell her to bring all the trainees," he muttered. "Now!"

Rufus watched him force his way out of the crowd, the light assault rifle in his hands clearing a slight path for him. He turned his attention back to the fracas in front of him.

"What the hell's going on here?"

Three men and a half a dozen teenagers stood in the centre of the bailey, the crowd loosely corralling them. Rufus frowned as he recognised Gary Tomlinson, Denis Holbert and Ryan Macey, all three with rising bruises and trickles of blood escaping from scrapes and cuts on their faces, all three sheened with sweat in the warm midday sunshine. Beside them, he saw Ben and Alan, four other kids he didn't know standing near them.

On the other side of the informal circle, Jason Kirkby, Joe Hanrahan and three others were equally bruised and bloodied, chests heaving as they glared at their opponents.

Looking from one group to the other, he shook his head. "You're kidding, right? What the fuck do you think is so important to fight over when we're in the middle of chasing down monsters, gods and half-breeds?"

Jason's gaze swivelled to him, one eye half-closed, his lip curling up. "Yeah, that's the story you're giving us."

"That's how it is!" Rufus snapped, feeling his irritation soar into anger.

"We're the ones out in the fields, working from dawn to dusk to grow the food for you parasites –"

"Looking at that paunch, I'm doubtin' you're doin' a lot of dawn-to-dusk plantin', Kirkby," Rufus cut him off dryly.

"Doesn't change the fact that we do the hard labour and you lot sit around making up crap that you're supposedly protecting us from," Joe spat out, his face reddening. "We got families to look after and a lotta kids on the way and we're not seeing anyone worrying about that!"

"That's a load of horse-shit, Joe," Liev said, stepping through the press of the crowd. "You know full well that the hunters have been onsite working on the new accommodations same as everyone else."

"Yeah, and throwing their weight around," one of the others said. "Hitting folk and putting them in hospital –"

"Should've made you a bit more cautious about picking fights," Rufus growled at him. "Although I see you're not going after the hunters anymore, just ordinary people and kids now."

"We don't need you – not like you need us," Jason said furiously. "Living off our sweat, sitting around like goddamned lords –"

"Might be the case," Jackson said, as he walked through the crowd and stepped between them. Behind him, the trainee hunters walked out and positioned themselves loosely around the edge of the circle, Franklin's garrison following them, all of them armed, the barrels pointed at the ground, fingers on the trigger guards. "Might not, but you all sat down two weeks ago and put me in charge," he continued, stopping in front of the men and looking expressionlessly around at the crowd surrounding them.

"And while that stands, I'll be making the decisions as to who's of use in this community – and who ain't," he said, his gaze returning to Kirkby with the last words. "You got a problem with anyone, you bring it to me."

"We haven't seen any monsters –" the man standing behind Joe said truculently.

"Lucky for you, Clem," Jackson cut him off dryly. "Not sure how many'd go after it to save your sorry hide."

He looked at the boys and men standing on the other side of the circle. "Same goes for everyone. You got a problem, it comes to me. No one is taking justice or their own misguided feelings into their own hands. Not here, not while I'm in charge."

Looking around the crowd, he added, "Some people have been spreading rumours, that the wars are over, that the devil's dead and we don't have any more problems." He paused, looking into the faces of the people standing there. "That's not true, and I should've told you this before. We got a lot of problems. Right now, there's a war going on, between powers that we never had to take into consideration before. In some ways, we're the prize, the few human survivors. The monsters, the demons and the angels – they all want us. As their slaves, or their food, or just for their amusement. That's the fact."

Gesturing vaguely toward Rufus and the trainees, he took a breath. "These folks don't have to be here. They can survive without us, less responsibility, less to worry about. Without us, they'd be mobile and well-able to take care of themselves and any of you who's ever been out on a supply run with them should know that. It's their work that kept our homes and families as safe as possible over the last few years. Their blood and scars that have gotten us here, with everything we've got to survive and keep going."

"Franklin," he said, looking over his shoulder at the grizzled hunter. "You got a cooling off place?"

Franklin looked at him steadily and nodded. "Sure do."

"Jason Kirkby, Joe Hanrahan, Clem Tuckman, Steve Miles, Allan Pearson and Jeremy Gibbs, you boys are spending the next couple of days thinking about what you've done here," he ordered. The men began to bluster as Franklin's soldiers surrounded them, the barrels lifted now.

"The rest of you," Jackson called out, raising his voice over the protests behind him as he turned to look over the crowd. "You think about how you got here. I got no room for those with short memories and no gratitude. I see another situation like this and it won't be a matter of cooling off, it'll be packing your bags and getting the hell out of here."

The silence was loud and Rufus watched the faces, relief trickling through him as he realised that Dean had made exactly the right choice for the leader to replace him. No one was going to argue with Jackson anyway, but backed up by Franklin's boys and the hunters, he thought there would be a lot more thought about the situation and a lot less belly-aching for the next few weeks, anyway. And by then, he knew, they would've either won or lost, one way or another.

He walked over to Ben as the men were marched away and the silence was broken by the crowd leaving, people talking and moving across the stone-paved bailey, returning to their jobs and families.

"What happened?" he asked the boy, looking down at him.

Ben glanced to his right, catching the eye of Liev's apprentice, Tomlinson. "They were saying stuff about Dean," he said in a low voice.

Rufus raised a brow at the underlying anger. Tomlinson nodded.

"Started out a slanging match," he told the hunter. "Got pretty personal and then Kirkby started in with man of the land crap and a lot more people gathered around."

"Most of them don't even know what Dean did," Ben burst out, his face reddening with the emotion banked up. "They don't know about Lucifer or Atlanta or-or-or anything!"

There wasn't much they could do about that, Rufus thought acerbically. Dean wouldn't thank them for bringing it to anyone's attention.

Gary looked at him. "I was there when the croats overran us in Michigan," he said in a low voice. "A lot of these folks weren't. Jackson was right about that, most people got short memories when it comes to gratitude."

Thinking of the siege in Tawas, Rufus agreed silently. "Not much we can do about that," he said, looking down at Ben. "But Jackson was also right about seeing him first, when it comes to this crap. They voted him in, and he can deal with it."

"Yes, Rufus," Ben mumbled, his gaze fixed to the ground. "When will they be back?"

He didn't have specify who he was talking about. Rufus shook his head. "Another few days," he said, shrugging. "No timetable for this stuff, you know that."

"Rufus, there were a lot of people who were saying … they were saying Dean doesn't care anymore."

Rufus glanced at Gary and the other man lifted his hands helplessly. "Which people, Ben?"

"I didn't know all of them," the boy said uncomfortably, his hands thrust into his pockets. "I think some of them were friends of that guy, you know, the one that Dean hit?"

The hunter nodded, looking over Ben's bowed head to Gary and tilting his head slightly. Gary took the hint and walked away, and Rufus looked back at down at Ben.

"You think they're right, Ben?"

"No," Ben said, shifting his feet. "I don't know. He – he's not the same …"

"He's out there, risking his life," Rufus pointed out. "To help his brother close the gates, so we can cross demon attack off our list of things to worry about."

"I know," Ben said, looking up at him. "I know what happened, and I know what he's doing."

"But?"

"Even after Mom died, he wasn't mean," Ben said. "It's not just me, a lot of people've been saying the same thing."

Rufus sighed. "Kid, you know why he's angry."

"It just feels like he gave up on everyone else," Ben said, looking away, his voice thick.

"He didn't give up on anybody," Rufus said slowly, wondering how to explain. "He's just had to cut out anything that doesn't have to do with the job, Ben. If he didn't, he wouldn't be able to do it."

"You mean, he'd get distracted?"

Rufus' mouth twisted up to one side. "Yeah, sort of."

It wasn't the distraction, although he supposed that everything the hunter wasn't looking at would be a helluva distraction if he let it out. He couldn't go into that with the fifteen-year old in front of him though.

"So, he'll be okay again, after the gates are closed?"

_See where lying gets you_, Rufus told himself irritably. "Yeah, I think, after a while, he'll probably be okay."

"Okay."

* * *

_**Hell**_

The light vanished as Sam came out of the short tunnel into what he could sense was a huge space, feeling the hot winds drying the sweat on his face and neck, ruffling his hair, carrying the scents of demons and sulphur and the brassy, acidic smell of molten rock.

He felt in his jacket pocket for the small globe of red glass Jerome had given him, pulling it out and cupping it in both hands as he tried to focus his attention solely on it. The legacy had shown him how to do it, in the deep basement levels of the order's safehold, and for Jerome, the ball had lit up softly, casting a dim, reddish glow over the man's face and hands, just enough light to see by. He'd tried twice, getting a slight flicker on the second attempt, but feeling a growing doubt he'd be able to get even that now.

_Just concentrate_, he told himself. _Remember what he told you. Clear your mind. It's all just energy. The spell in the glass will do the hard bit, just concentrate on what you want_.

The glass grew warmer in his hands and he risked opening his eyes a fraction. There was a very dim red glow at the heart of the globe and the sight gave him the belief in himself to make it grow stronger and brighter.

Looking around, he felt his breath leave his lungs in a fast exhale. The space was huge. He couldn't see the far walls, or the ceiling and in front of him was a blackness that seemed impenetrable.

The angels call it _Adoian Baltim_, Jerome had said. The Face of Fury, in Enochian. A crack in one of the joins between the planes that was miles deep and divided the accursed plane between the upper and lower levels. At the bottom a river of lava flowed to wastelands and the Cage, and the shadow daemons endlessly tore apart souls for treason and betrayal. There was a stair that led down into the depths, and five thousand steps down a narrow rock bridge cross the abyss. The crack was guarded by the daeva, haunting the rising thermals on black wings, their sightless eyes as black as the void in which they lived.

Holding the glass ball in one hand, Sam moved cautiously to the edge of the drop. In the stygian darkness he could see a faint red thread, far below. _Grosb Cnila_. Bitter Blood. He pulled his attention back to the cliff top and looked around. The worn and mismatched stairs were to his left and he walked to the top, seeing the indentations in the centre of the stone steps, the mark of the feet that had gone down to the depths. The light of his spelled ball wasn't strong enough to see more than a few yards ahead of him and his fingers closed around the talisman tightly.

By the time he was halfway down the stairs his legs were aching and he no longer particularly cared if the shadow daemons could see him or not. He was counting the steps off in his head, each thousand reached and passed eliciting a deeper sigh. The thought of the other side, with its five thousand stairs going up to the other side of the ravine, he kept locked away, unable to contemplate the idea.

He felt a fleeting and unwelcomed moment of nostalgia for the game he and his brother had played at their father's behest. Stair racing. His best effort had been at fifteen, tying with Dean on the Grouse Grind trail when a hunt had taken them across the border into British Columbia. Neither of them had raced the stairways again, to their father's intense disappointment. He wasn't sure if it'd been the trail or the tie that had caused the mutual but unspoken decision to quit.

At thirty-five hundred, he stopped, leaning against the rough rock wall to his left, waiting for the muscles of thigh and calf to stop trembling. Aside from the moan of the wind as it rose up the abyss, he hadn't heard or seen anything at all, the wall of blackness marking what he presumed was the void of the crack as impenetrable to his small light more than halfway to the bridge as it'd been at the top.

The drying heat was parching him, he realised as he started down again. He should've brought some water at least, his tongue thick and sticky in his mouth with every breath he inhaled.

Lifting the glass when he counted five thousand, he saw the bridge, a slender arch of rock between the two sides of the chasm, the top polished and smooth. Stepping out on it, he pushed aside the thought of collapse and the long, long way down to the fine red line he could see from the edge. A unit of angels had trampled across this bridge, he told himself firmly, and wings or no, their weight would've taken it down if it'd been inclined to go.

The movement to one side caught his peripheral and he stopped, heart thundering in his ears as he watched the dim light gleam over a wrinkled and scabrous leathern wing, the shape barely seen before it disappeared beyond the light's reach. The daemon hadn't looked at him or shown any interest and he clutched the talisman, holding the light higher as he edged across the narrow isthmus of stone, hearing now the snap and crackle of the wings and catching glimpses as they flew close, of black, bulbous, pupilless eyes, and long crystalline claws and overlapping teeth, protruding from the slender jaws. How the hell had the angels fought them off on this bridge, he wondered as he hurried across to the other side.

The stairs leading up were as ill-cut as the ones that had brought him down and he stopped several times on the long climb, muscles and tendons aching, the smell of brimstone and acid burning in his lungs, toxic fumes he could imagine eating their way through the delicate membranes of lung and throat and nose.

* * *

The halls and rooms and grand, curving staircases had all been carved from the black basalt rock, Sam realised as he walked through the empty level. Every column, fluted and filigreed into fantastical shapes, into delicate cages holding only air, the bevelled and polished floor and arched and groined ceilings, the elaborate balustrades and banisters and gracefully pointed gothic doorways had once been solid. He'd noticed only because on one section of the wide and high hall, the grain of the rock continued unbroken through each of the architectural details he could see.

How long it had taken? And what was the purpose of the level that held no souls, no demons, nothing but elegant, spacious rooms and halls and the winds of Hell, sighing through the larger rooms, fluting faintly in the arabesque carvings. It was, to use his brother's phrasing, creepy. _Incredibly creepy_.

He followed the widest hallway down a fan-shaped set of shallow steps and through an expansive double-doorway and stopped. The … room … was enormous, a vast chamber a thousand feet long and at least a third of that in width, fluted columns of a smoky dark crystal supporting the unseen ceiling down the length of it. At the far end, Sam's eyes widened as he saw the low dais and the golden chair that sat upon it.

Memory doubled over vision and he closed his eyes, seeing again the white and black halls in the mansion in the city to the south, gold-veined marble and the dais at the end, the throne his captor – his _possessor_ – had used nothing like this one but still familiar enough to be disorienting, carved and jewelled, the outstretched wings curving around, each feather detailed …

Opening his eyes, Sam blinked rapidly, staring at the golden chair that was now only a few feet from him. He looked back over his shoulder, the broad doorway through which he'd entered at the far end of the long room. He hadn't walked here. _Had he?_

The throne held the soft lustre of pure gold, the details picked out in diamond and ruby, emerald and sapphire. Sam backed away from it as the wind sighed through the room, its whisper almost a voice.

_No_, he thought, looking around. There's no one here.

_It had to be you. It always had to be you, Sammy._

_NO!_ Lucifer was dead. Dean had killed the fallen angel for good.

_But you didn't see that, did you, Sam? Didn't see it happen. You were out cold, lying on the cool grass of the stadium. Everyone told you that's what happened. But did it really happen like that, Sam?_

Lucifer was dead. He was sure of that, a hundred percent sure of it. He stared at the throne and the whisper brushed against his hair.

_I told you I would give you everything, Sam. I promised you the world – let me deliver it._

Sam felt something roll down his face and he lifted his hand, wiping the back of it over his cheek. It came away wet and he stared at the sweat that dripped from his knuckles. He was hot. And, he realised suddenly, getting hotter.

_God can't help you, Sam. Sit on the throne, drink the power that you've looked for your whole life, more power than you could possibly dream of, the power to destroy the traitors, those crawling angels who fled my defeat; the power to destroy the monsters that terrorise your people once and forever and keep those you love safe. Your brother couldn't do it, couldn't even keep his own family safe, but you can, Sam. Sit on the throne and it will all be yours._

Sam grunted as heat flushed through his veins and arteries, rippling through his cells and consuming him. His head fell back as he fell to the floor, every muscle locked in steel-hard contraction, his nervous system frying as his blood boiled and steamed inside of him.

* * *

_Dean ran to him, sliding an arm under his shoulders and lifting him up, pressing something cool against his lips, ice water trickling over his tongue and he tried to open his eyes, hands reaching up to grab the container, tipping it into his mouth. He swallowed great gulps, feeling the cold put out the fires that flickered and burned, the sweet moisture replenishing him, cooling him, bringing him back. He looked into his brother's worried face._

_Dean, did you kill Lucifer?_

_The dark brows drew together in the characteristic frown as Dean stared at him. Of course I did, hell, Sam you were there._

_I didn't see it, he said, searching Dean's face, searching his eyes for the truth. Please, just tell me the truth, did you kill him? Did he really die?_

_The Spear went into him, Sam, went in and blew him apart. There wasn't even anything left for Death to hold onto, Dean told him steadily, the frown still there. Why? Why are you asking me that now?_

_I saw … I heard … Sam faltered and looked down at himself, seeing the patches of smouldering cloth where the conflagration had reached out through his skin and torched his clothing. Nothing … must have been a … a dream … or a hallucination … or something._

_Hallucination? Dean asked worriedly. Sam, what's going on?_

_Nothing, it's all good, he said, cool and in command of his body again. I've got to finish the trial, Dean._

_His brother disappeared and he fell back without the support of Dean's arm, his elbows cracking on the smooth stone floor. What had happened? Had it been a hallucination?_

* * *

Sam rolled over, his stomach cramping and convulsing as he ejected a small stream of bile and blood onto the floor. Pushing himself to his knees, he wiped his mouth and staggered upright, his back to the golden throne and his gaze fixed on the doorway at the other end of the long chamber. He walked as fast as he could for the hall, ignoring the shudders that wracked through him, ignoring the dryness of his mouth and throat, ignoring the icy fear centred in his stomach.

It took him a long time to get to the doorway and he stumbled through, leaning against the wall and wiping the perspiration from his face, rubbing it with the already-damp sleeve of his coat. Whether or not it had really happened or had been a trick of Lucifer's, left behind after the angel had perished, or just a fever dream brought on by the battle for possession in his blood vessels, it didn't matter. He had to keep going. He was more than halfway to the ninth level and he had to keep going.

The gates between the fifth level and the sixth were monstrous, and thankfully, standing ajar, Sam thought as he walked toward them. He slipped through the gap, and felt his feet sink into the soft, light, grey rocks that made up the ground on the other side. Pumice, he thought in surprise, and looked up. The sixth level was a bubble, a vast spherical cavern, half-filled with a lake of molten rock, the searing heat and toxic fumes hitting him together as he took a few more steps down over the shifting layer of rounded stones.

For a long moment he stood on the shore and stared at the roiling waves, feeling the heat bake his skin and his mouth and nose and throat, the poisonous gases making his eyes water helplessly, his confidence gone and his will broken by the sight of the impossible level. Nothing could cross this.

_The angels flew over the lake_, Jerome had told him. _But they were not precisely flesh and blood when they stormed the accursed plane. Every manifestation creates a different reality. Flesh and blood forces different laws into play, laws that do not exist for beings of unencumbered energy_.

He had no wings and he was definitely encumbered. And there was nowhere else to go but forward.

He felt his brows and eyelashes crisping as he approached the lava, felt his chest seizing and hitching as the moisture was sucked from his body. He didn't look down, keeping his gaze fixed on the wavering, heat-distorted horizon of the lake and he stepped out into the brilliant red and black liquid rock.

His boot hit rock and Sam looked down, the razor-edged and humped over wave that he'd stepped onto solid and hard under his feet. He looked up and saw that the lake had disappeared.

_Not disappeared_, he thought, looking more closely. _Solidified_. _Cooled_. Here and there puffs of superheated steam rose through the cracks and holes and fissures in the jagged uneven plain, but where he stood it felt stable and steady and he took another stride onto the hard, cool stone, lifting his head again to look at the distant horizon. For flesh and blood, the lake was solid. Catching some breaks, he thought a little incoherently, looking down at the lacy stone, frozen full of air pockets.

Forty miles, Castiel had told Jerome when the legacy had buttonholed the angel for the account of the rescue. The lake followed the spherical dimensions of the bubble that lay between the planes and it was forty miles in diameter. He started walking faster.

* * *

The far horizon didn't seem to get any closer, but when he stopped to look back, the shore he'd set off from had disappeared from sight. Above, the cavern ceiling was almost out of view, curving upwards gently from all directions, the details lost in the miasma of steam and smoke, tinged with red. Everything down here was tinged with red, he thought acidly. A world bathed in blood.

Better not to watch the horizon, he decided ten minutes later when he noticed with frustration that the horizon was remaining as flat and featureless as ever. Better to look at the ground under his feet, and just keep going until the surface itself changed.

It did, perhaps an hour later, or longer, or shorter. He couldn't tell. He looked up and instead of the flat horizon, cliffs towered above a pale grey beach, a pair of gargantuan porphyry gates set in the middle and an inscription carved into the lintel over them in no language he recognised.

Welcome to the Seventh Level of Hell, he speculated humourlessly. Walking up the shifting slope, he stopped in front of them. They were possibly thirty feet high and about the same across, smooth and polished and he had no idea how to open them or even if he could.

Stepping closer he laid a hand against the flat surface and said, "Belloch!"

The gates remained impervious and he smiled a little at himself, looking up at them. "Open Sesame!"

And that was the sum total of his magic words, he thought wearily, stepping back. On either side, the cliffs that ringed the seventh level were much higher than the gates, eighty or ninety feet, Sam estimated. But not smooth. They were almost vertical, in places bulging out, but as he walked along them to the right, he saw that there were plenty of hand and foot holds for climbing, provided he was careful. He kept walking until he saw a section that was a little rougher and turned in, reaching up for the first protrusion, finding a narrow ledge for his foot and pulling himself up.

With no safety lines or cams, nuts or hexes, he was relying on his own strength to keep from falling. He checked each hold carefully before letting it take his weight, jamming his fingers or fist into the cracks and splits in the rock face, tightening them in place and taking his time to find the next foothold. It was slow. And tiring. And hard on his fingers, knuckles and joints.

The top of the cliff was convex, bulging outward a little and Sam reached over the lip, feeling around for something, anything, to give him a strong anchor to pull himself over. The fissure felt solid, but he didn't trust it, and the edge crumbled in his fingers as he dug them in. The next one was better.

Rolling away from the edge at the top of the cliff, he lay on his back, staring at the not-sky with its red and yellow and green-tinged clouds, feeling a breeze that wasn't hot and dry slip over his skin, evaporating his sweat and cooling him.

Time no longer meant anything in particular. Moving was the only thing he could think of, one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. The light never varied, the temperature remained the same. There was no day and no night. No seasons or any sense of anything ever changing. He realised he hadn't seen any souls or demons since the third level and wondered why. It wasn't a compelling enough thought to hold his interest. When the tremors of the climb had bled out of his muscles, he rolled onto his stomach and crawled to the other side of the cliff top.

Spread out under him, the maze stretched out as far as he could see, black volcanic rock forming the walls, the ground in between some kind of glittering white soil, mostly shadowed but here and there catching the light of the not-sky. From the perspective of the cliff top, high above the ground, he could see the twists and turns that led to the centre. The gate between this level and the next was another dimensional portal, he remembered. In the centre of the maze. He stared at the patterns and memorised as much as he could, then got to his feet, walking along the top of the cliff to the stairs that were cut into the rock on the inside of the wall.

* * *

The centre was a circle, a hundred and fifty yards in diameter, covered with the same glittering white sand that filled the maze paths. Looking around for the gate, Sam walked across the soft, shifting ground, criss-crossing the arena. To one side, he saw a skeleton, half-buried, the bones black and gleaming, much larger than human. Kneeling beside it, he let his fingers brush lightly over the shoulder joint, seeing the protrusion from the scapula at the back, a ragged stub of bone.

Fallen angel, he thought, looking at the elongated, over-sized skull, sand spilling through the empty eye sockets. One of the arch-demons. He didn't know which one, and he dusted the sand from the high, curving rib-cage, seeing two of the ribs smashed and bent outward.

He got to his feet and turned toward the other side of the amphitheatre. A massive stone table sat incongruously there. Beside it, there was a large metal frame, rusted gears and pulleys and wire hanging from it. Both table and frame were stained with a dark red-brown, patches and dried up pools, drips and runs.

_They took me off the rack, and I tortured souls, and I liked it. All those years; all that pain. Finally getting to deal some out yourself ... I didn't care who they put in front of me, because that pain I felt, that just slipped away …_

Sam felt his throat close as he stared at the table and the frame. He turned abruptly away, looking at the sand at his feet. In the centre of the circle of rock, the ground dipped a little, the sand ridges spiralling inward around the hollow.

The gate was under the sand. He felt a wash of relief at the thought, relief that he could push aside the memories of the past and get on with what he'd come to do. He couldn't change anything, couldn't undo the past for himself or … anyone else. He could only keep going.

He felt the smooth metal disk less than twelve inches below the surface, his hands scraping back the soft, dry grains as he cleared it. There didn't seem to be any mechanism for operating it and he remembered the arch. Just stepping through that had triggered the transfer. He took a deep breath and stepped down onto the disc and everything disappeared.

* * *

_**Nebraska**_

The birds and animals felt it first, a subterranean growl, too low to hear, felt in the bones and teeth and claws. They didn't know or care how they knew, but they ran from the deep vibrations, scurrying and leaping, a flock of grackles taking wing from the forest and wheeling eastwards, their agitated calls filling the air.

The ground split, the sod tearing apart as the fissure widened and deepened, a wound opening in the earth. The trees to either fell, roots pulled from the dense soil, branches cracking and breaking as they hit the ground. Steam hissed from the crack and a light shone from the depths, a pulsing red light that wasn't quite light, wasn't quite red, was a frequency that had no correlation on the material plane.

The creature that dragged itself over the lip of the split was not material and not really spirit. Once it had been a wavelength of pure energy. Now it sucked the energy from every living thing and as the tattered black cloth shrouding it touched the soil, the grass withered and charred, the leaves from the nearby trees died and dropped to the ground, the sap solidifying in the trunks, the colours bleaching out from shrub and bush. It crawled out of the hole and away, and the ground closed up behind it, poisoned and blackened and dead along its trail.

The sunlight picked out the gleam of bone and yellowing sinew and it hunched slightly, pulling the rent cloth around itself. It could not tolerate the light for long and it drew the shadows closer, a hissing sound coming from the blackness of the hood and cloud forming over it, small and white at first, growing larger and darker, the wind picking up as the air was moved this way and that, pulling more moisture from the soil.

The vortex began as a small dustdevil, picking up the smashed branches, the crumbling clumps of blackened earth and the poisoned leaves, spinning them around until they were a blur, pulverised into their component parts, earth and dust and the dead cellular structures. The black cloth fell as the whirlwind touched the creature and it exerted its power to manipulate the contents, clothing itself in something more permanent, something more durable for the laws of this plane.

The man who stepped out of the wind a moment later was tall and lean. His weather-beaten face was long and narrow, with dark eyes set deep under black brows, a long, slightly crooked nose and a wide, thin-lipped mouth. Creases bracketed mouth and eyes, and black hair, straight and lank, was brushed back from the high forehead and fell to the shoulders. A black denim shirt, dark blue jeans and scarred boots covered the hard-muscled body.

No memories still existed of the life he had once lived. No feelings or thoughts stirred in the darkness of his mind. His master had stripped that from him, in excruciating love and the agonies of his deepest attention. It had been more than forty thousand years since he'd walked on this plane. The winds freshened behind him and he turned south of west, distantly aware of the pull of the angel's ritual, a fish-hook in his consciousness, a summoning that could not be cast off and ignored.

Striding away from the burned and dead patch in the forest, moving faster as he settled into the newly constructed form, he was barely aware of the force he exerted on the world and behind him, the cloud gathered and built, faint flashes of light forming within the gravid bottoms, hiding the sunlight and spreading a deepening shadow over the man and the land through which he walked.


	21. Chapter 21 A Harvest of Bitter Memory

**Chapter 21 A Harvest of Bitter Memory**

* * *

_**Hell**_

Sam hunched against the bitter gale, eyes half-closed as he staggered over the humps and hollows of the frozen tundra, the sharp, granular snow stinging with the force of the wind against his skin, collecting in the folds of his clothes, sticking to and clumping on his lashes and brows and hair.

He saw souls, now and then, embedded in the ice pools and frozen marsh, their skin blue and eyeballs white, moving sometimes but mostly still. He couldn't imagine the sin that had condemned them to an eternity of this, isolation in a wasteland of continuous frigid wind and snow. The cold was penetrating through his clothing, through his skin and meat down to the bone as he walked forward, into the wind, always into the wind, with the faint blue glow behind the mountains that lay in the distance, never getting any nearer.

_Bless me, Father, for I have sinned …_

The thought slipped in and out of his consciousness, his limbs getting heavier.

_You hate me that much? You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger. Do it!_

The empty click. He heard that sound in his dreams, even now. Over and over again.

_I didn't hate you, I just didn't want to _be_ you._

He stumbled forward, arms swinging wildly out to the sides and stopped for a moment, doubled over, holding his hands in front of his mouth, not sure if he was trying to warm them or the air inside his chest.

_I just couldn't let go then, Dean, _he thought, remembering the constant irritation of being together, the miserable loneliness and longing._ You and Dad, you were still family, not real people with feelings and motivations of your own. Just still my brother and my father, both trying to make me live a life I hated. I'm sorry._

When he'd held his brother in his arms in the house in New Harmony, that's when Dean had stopped just being his brother and had become Dean, the man who'd loved him so much he'd given up his life and soul for him. He didn't understand him, didn't understand that, but he understood that his brother had had his own reasons, his own thoughts and life that had nothing to do with him in that moment.

When it was too late.

Straightening, he brushed the crusted snow from his face, staring at the horizon. The mountains, the glow, were still as distant as when he'd started, the wind howling across the icy plain and cutting through his clothes, into his skin. He pulled his coat more tightly around himself and kept walking.

_No. I mean, he can't do it. He can't get the job done. Something happened to him downstairs, Ruby. He's not what he used to be. He's not strong enough._

The arrogance of pride. He'd never even seen it in himself. Never had the slightest inkling that all the talk of saving people was a front for a much darker desire. And he hadn't known then that there was a difference between strength and indifference. Indifference to life. To the consequences. _Now, Dean could do it_, he thought dazedly, dragging his feet one after the other through the stiff, frozen grass and piles of hard, icy snow. Now he didn't care at all, about anything, and he could torture and kill without thought. But before he'd lost her, and all the way back then, his brother had fought with real strength and real courage, knowing exactly what he had to lose and fighting on anyway because it had to be done and there was no one else to do it.

After Jess had been murdered, he'd thought he was the same person, angry and confused and grieving, sure, but still the same. But there was a part of him that wasn't. There was a part of himself that got harder, more calloused, less careful and caring. He'd watched people and the events from a little more outside himself every day, gained a little more distance, what he'd told himself was perspective, objectivity, but it hadn't been. It had been disinterest. So what if he killed another innocent in the name of killing the demon inside the meatsuit? What was one more or less life in the greater scheme of things? So what if he'd lied? It made life easier than facing the disappointment, the anger of his brother, of Bobby, of those who'd cared for him. So what if when the power had flowed through him, he'd felt a sensory pleasure that had buoyed him up for hours, that power addictive, at his fingertips, the power to save the world.

_Because it's not something that you're doing, it's what you are! It means—it means you're a _monster_._

That memory went deeper, and he flinched from it as he'd done at the moment it'd happened, the expression of torment and guilt on his brother's face filling his mind's eye. At that moment, that one moment, it hadn't been too late, still not too late. If he'd listened, if he'd believed, he still could've turned away, and the last seal would have been left intact, the devil locked in.

The tears froze on his face, caught in his eyelashes and he didn't feel himself drop to his knees, head bowed as that understanding filtered through every part of him. Ruby had stoked and stroked him and pride, black and noisome opposite of humility, had taken him all the way.

The choice had been his. And he'd made it, knowing what he was doing. There was just no justification, no rationalisation that could redeem what he'd done. There was only … could he accept it? … or could he not.

_No. Please don't. Just listen to me, okay? My name is Cindy McClellan. I'm a nurse in the NICU over at Enfield Memorial. I have a husband named Matthew, okay? We've been married six years. He's got to be worried sick about me. And I don't even know who you are, and I'm not gonna tell anybody anything. Please just let me go._

He leaned forward and threw up onto the thin ice in front of him, shuddering as the memory lit him up. He remembered driving toward Maryland with Ruby, doubts plaguing him, fear and uncertainty and horror making it impossible to think, impossible to figure out if he was making the right choice. And standing over the trunk of the car, looking into her terrified eyes, he'd closed his own as the knife had plunged down.

_I don't get it. All the demons you cut with the knife - what do you think happens to the host? How is this any different?_

The truth was … it hadn't been any different. Another innocent life taken. Another rationalisation made. The sacrifice of the one for the good of the many. And he'd known, in his heart, and deeper still, in his soul, that sacrifice was murder unless it was made freely. Given freely. _I have killed the innocent and drunk their blood. I have lost my way. I have lost my faith. I no longer knew what was good … and what was evil_.

Sam threw his head back, the snow peppering against his face, rattling against the stiff, damp fabric of his coat, filling his open mouth.

_My choice. My deed. My responsibility._

Heat flared, inside the blood vessels and paths and he welcomed it, driving out the bitter cold and filling him with fire. Burn it out … please, _PLEASE!_ Burn it all out.

Under Sam's skin light poured through every artery, vein and capillary, brightening as it reached through his body, pulsing in time with his heart beat, spilling from the corners of his closed eyes, from his nose and mouth.

There was agony.

There was despair.

And there was penance.

* * *

_**Harrison, Arkansas**_

"Are those people?" Drew whispered, staring down at the broad valley below them.

Beside him, Riley lifted the field glasses, grimacing as the magnification gave him a good look at those walking over the dry and barren earth alongside the stream.

"No."

Turning his head, Drew squinted at him, the hot afternoon sunshine reflecting from the light-coloured sand under them. "They're walking – what are they?"

Riley sighed and handed him the glasses, rolling onto his back as the other man took them, resting his forearm over his eyes, the images still rolling unsought behind his closed lids.

He heard Drew's sharp intake of breath.

"What the hell –?"

"Yeah, reckon that about covers it," Riley said sourly, the memory of what he'd just seen rising in his mind again.

They were people. Had once been people. Now they were something else, corpses walking through the hot air, skin grey and pouched and slipping from the bones, eyes deeply sunk into the sockets and barely glimpsed under the protruding ridge of their brows. He was extremely thankful for the direction of the wind, carrying the scent he could imagine all too clearly away from them. He'd seen the flies, covering the skin, filling the open holes, the wriggling masses seething in the putrefying flesh.

"Riley."

Kelly crawled up the rock-strewn slope beside him, flattening himself out as he came close to the top.

"Zombies," Riley told him, silently marvelling at the word that had come without volition. Maybe Winchester was right, he thought, maybe he was getting used to a world he'd scarcely believed in when he'd moved to back to Kansas, hoping to just do what he was good at it and be able to leave it at that.

"A lot of them," Drew breathed, staring down into the valley.

The hunter adjusted the field and scanned the narrowing valley floor carefully, taking a rough head count as the corpses kept marching from the cracked road to the south of the valley. His mouth thinned as the numbers kept rising.

"What's that?"

He shifted his view slightly, moving the glasses around to focus on the head of the valley where Drew was looking. Two men – no, a man and a boy – stood waiting there, watching the zombies approaching.

Something in their stance told him that they were reason for the thousands of animated bodies being there. As the first of the decaying corpses got close to them, the boy stepped forward, spreading his arms out.

The rush of air stirred the sand and dirt along the valley floor, moving to fill the spaces where the zombies had been a moment before. Drew blinked, his glasses swinging wildly up and down the floor of the broad valley.

"What – where'd they'd go?"

Kelly lowered his glasses, staring at the empty valley and sighing. "Utah, I guess."

Rolling onto his side to look at him, Riley asked, "Why?"

"To join the army the Grigori are raising." He wriggled downslope a few feet and sat up. "Come on, we have to get back as quickly as we can now, they need to know about this."

* * *

_**Hell**_

Lying curled on his side, Sam slowly realised that he couldn't feel his feet. He shifted a little and felt a pile of the hard, granular slip from his shoulder and neck, pattering onto the ground. _Get up_, he told himself. _Dying here is not an available option_.

The heat had gone and he was frozen, his blood flowing sluggishly as he tried to force himself to move, to roll over, to sit up. The wind howled and bit into him and he started to shiver, muscles twitching uncontrollably as his body struggled to keep the liquid warmed in his core circulating. He opened his eyes and started a little as he saw the mountain looming over him, jagged dark grey rock and streaks of white ice, towering into the pewter-coloured cloud.

_Most people think I burn hot. Actually, it's quite the opposite._

Lucifer had told him that in the abandoned theatre when he'd finally found him. He pushed the memory away, climbing to his feet, feeling his stiff limbs and joints creaking and shaking as he forced them to work again.

In the dark shadow of an overhang of rock he saw a deeper patch of darkness and walked toward it, teeth chattering helplessly and the snow that crusted his face falling off in small patches, the frigid air stinging in the raw, reddened skin.

The darkness resolved itself into a rounded cave opening, a rill of clean meltwater trickling out to one side, the still, cold air inside freezing the moisture in his nose, in his lungs.

He stepped through the opening.

_I told you, Sam. It would always happen in Detroit._

Memory rocked him as he stumbled forward, boot sole sliding out from under him on the glazed surface of the icy rock and his eyes widening as he dragged in a deep breath that stabbed into his chest.

The cave entrance was the gate, he realised, turning to look behind him. A long, fantastically twisting tunnel of ice glowed blue and white, continuing in swoops and bends in front of him.

He knew, without knowing how he knew, that he was inside the frozen heart of the mountain, not in the Cage, not yet, but very close. He took a cautious step forward, feeling his foot sliding out and catching himself, making sure his weight was right over each foot as he walked slowly forward.

"_So, you're his vessel, huh? Lucifer's wearing you to the prom?"_

_Sam stared at the road, his fingers tightening around the car's wheel. "That's what he said."_

_"Just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in, huh, Sammy?"_

_He frowned. "So, that's it? That's your response?"_

_"What are you looking for?"_

_"I don't know. A—a little panic? Maybe?"_

_"I guess I'm a little numb to the earth-shattering revelations at this point."_

_"What are we gonna do about it?"_

_He heard Dean's soft sigh at the other end of the line. "What do you want to do about it?"_

_"I want back in, for starters."_

_"Sam—"_

_"I mean it. I am sick of being a puppet to these sons of bitches. I'm gonna hunt him down, Dean."_

_"Oh, so, we're back to revenge, then, are we? Yeah, 'cause that worked out so well last time."_

_"Not revenge. Redemption."_

_"So, what, you're just gonna walk back in and we're gonna be the dynamic duo again?" Dean asked derisively._

"_Look, Dean, I can do this. I can. I'm gonna prove it to you."_

"_Sam—it doesn't matter—whatever we do. I mean, it turns out that you and me, we're the, uh, the fire and the oil of the Armageddon. You know, on that basis alone, we should just pick a hemisphere. Stay away from each other for good."_

"_Dean, it does not have to be like this. We can fight it."_

"_Yeah, you're right. We can. But not together. We're not stronger when we're together, Sam. I think we're weaker. Because whatever we have between us—love, family, whatever it is—they are always gonna use it against us. And you know that. Yeah, we're better off apart. We got a better chance of dodging Lucifer and Michael and this whole damn thing, if we just go our own ways."_

"_Dean, don't do this."_

"_Bye, Sam."_

The conversation replayed in his head as he lurched along the slick ice tunnel, hands red and burning from repeatedly touching the ice to either side. He'd been driving, somewhere, he remembered. He hadn't asked where Dean was but he'd heard the weariness in his brother's voice, the bone-deep weariness and something else, something he hadn't wanted to hear, hadn't wanted to acknowledge.

Indifference.

He couldn't remember hearing that particular note, not of despair or of fear or of heartache, but just lack of interest, in his brother's voice before. Sitting in the empty picnic grounds under the serried peaks of the Rockies, feeling the faint itch of the blood under his nails, Dean'd said he'd lost his faith in him, had lost the ability to trust him but even then, he'd thought that he would go and get his head together, give Dean a chance to do the same, and eventually, they'd reunite to fight the devil. He hadn't considered that those foundation stones, that bedrock of their upbringing, their childhoods, their brotherhood, might've been shattered beyond the ability of either Dean or himself to repair.

As he'd driven north aimlessly, one state flowing into the next, it'd come to him that he'd never been truly alone in his life. Leaving for Stanford, his brother's anguish and his father's anger beating at his back, he'd known that either or both would come if he'd called, if he'd needed them. Then finding Jess and … and becoming a part of her, wrapped in normal, he'd been a long way from alone. Dean had come to get him and aside from that one breakaway moment in Indiana, they'd spent the next five years in the car, in motels, at Bobby's, chasing down monsters and their father, keeping each other safe or trying to. Being alone, knowing that even if he asked, even if he begged, Dean would not come, he'd felt the whole world, the weight of it, falling onto him. And the blood had just about driven him insane with its demands, with its aching, scratching, itching yearning.

_Still a choice, Sammy_. Dean's voice in his head and he nodded tiredly. Yes, it had still been a choice. To give in to that hammering need or to turn away from it completely.

He hadn't turned away. And Lucifer had been in Detroit.

The tunnel was widening, he thought, looking up and ahead. A chill, white light spilled over the gleaming ice as the floor flattened out, refracting in the deeper fractures of the thick walls, spearing through the thin sheets. He walked a little faster and came out into a cavern, bulging and narrowing, like an hour-glass lying on its side. In the centre of the larger half, a smooth slab of ice jutted up from the floor. And thrust deeply into it, the blade waveringly visible through the occlusions and distortions of the slab, the sword of the archangel, Lucifer.

* * *

_**Strawberry Peak, Utah**_

At dusk, the gates opened again, another couple of hundred people filing in. Lee looked at them carefully, then turned his attention to the towers. The nephilim, if that's what they were, were watching the square carefully. He had the distinct impression that a few of them had itchy fingers, and the smallest move that seemed out of place would result in a fast and bloody death. Instinct, the hunter's third eye, sent faint trills of alarm through him as he saw their gazes scanning the heavily crowded compound.

With the new people there was barely room to sit. An hour later, when the last light had died out of the sky and the klieg lights came on, pointing down into the square, the gates opened again and a dozen men walked in, carrying huge pots of cooked rice. They left them in the square and went out and Lee watched as the people scrambled for the rations, obviously too little to feed everyone there.

Krissy shook her head when he asked her if she was hungry, drawing back against the stone wall with Archie and wrapping her arms around her knees. The air was cold and it was mostly by huddling together that they kept themselves warm in the long hours of darkness.

They were all survivors, Lee thought, seeing the distinctive brands on some of them, bare and unmarked arms on others. Over the three years since the virus had decimated the population, he and Krissy had been looking for other people, trying to find a decent place to settle and be able to grow their own food, looking for tools and seed and equipment … he wondered where these people had been, all that time. Wondered how they'd survived all of that, only to be rounded and deposited here. Both Archie and Seth thought they would probably be enslaved by the angel half-breeds, made to work in one way or another. Now, he wasn't so sure. Slaves, even when they were plentiful, were usually more use if they were fed enough to work hard.

He watched the disappointed move away from the scraped-clean cauldrons, most trying to find a place against the walls, others hunkering down where they stood. There wasn't any room to lie down any longer.

"You got any ideas on what they want with us?" Seth's voice was low behind his shoulder. Lee shook his head.

"No."

"Doesn't seem much like forced labour is the answer now, does it?"

Lee glanced back at him, seeing his gaze on the empty pots. "No, I got a bad feeling that ain't it."

The other man nodded slightly, his gaze shifting to the towers. "They were watching for any move, when the new people came in, and when the food brought."

"Yeah, they're on the ball," Lee agreed. "I don't think it matters too much to them if we're alive or dead."

The thought was unsettling.

"Get some sleep," Seth said quietly after a moment. "I'll wake you at midnight."

Lee nodded and turned back for the wall, stepping between people as he headed for his daughter, his thoughts churning over the few pieces of information he had, trying to make it fit into some kind of picture.

"Not looking for slaves," Archie said to him softly as he crouched down in the small space in front of the old man and Krissy. "Not on that amount of food."

He looked at him steadily for a moment. "Doesn't seem that way. You got any ideas?"

Archie grimaced. "Nothing you want to go sleep on."

"I'll risk it," Lee told him. "Share with the class, Arch."

"I talked to the people who came in at midday," Archie said, glancing sideways at Krissy's still form and lowering his voice. "They were in Virginia when they were taken. Not far from Arlington."

Lee's eyes narrowed at the emphasis the old man put on the location. "And?"

"Said they saw the graves break open, and the dead rising," Archie said, his eyes fixed on Lee's. "All the dead there."

Lee made a noise in his throat. "More than three hundred thousand graves there, Arch."

"I know," Archie said. "Used it for a scene in a book ten years ago."

"You think they're trying to make a zombie army?"

"I don't know what to think," the writer said, shrugging. "But I don't think it's coincidental, those bodies climbing out of their graves, and us being held here."

"What's the connection?"

"You're the hunter, Lee," he said with a rueful twist of his mouth. "Would a zombie army need the living for anything?"

"Most of the lore on zombies is a pile of horse-shit," Lee said slowly. "To be honest, I wouldn't know what was truth and what wasn't."

"Something to keep us occupied then."

* * *

Krissy shivered as the sky began to streak in gold and rose, the edges of the wisps and streamers of cloud lighting up against the pale silver background. She heard the noise and reached out to shake her father awake.

"Dad, something's happening."

Lee looked up, lifting a hand and rubbing it over his face tiredly as he looked around. He registered the noise, a soft roar from the rising ground outside and to the north of the compound, almost like wings, whirring in the still silence. Not birds, though, he thought, getting to his feet and looking at the sky. Insects maybe, bees or hornets or something that swarmed.

The cloud burst above the compound wall, a long, elongated ribbon of black and charcoal, twisting high against the dawn sky and circling over them. Sentient, he thought, watching it spiral higher, slowing and writhing as the sun's upper limb broke over the eastern horizon. It seemed to flinch from that thin gold light.

It was all the thought he had time for as the ribbon arced upward and plunged down toward the square, splitting up into hundreds of separate streamers of smoke. He saw one of them hit a teenage girl on the other side of the compound, forcing itself in through her mouth, her body jack-knifing upright, every muscle rigid and her eyes open wide and staring as it filled her up. Then she slumped and looked right at him, blue eyes narrowing and flicking to black, from corner to corner.

_Christ! Demons!_ The thought was barely formed when the slender twisting column of smoke reached him and hit the invisible wall of the protective pendant he wore. He swung around to see another ribbon writhing around his daughter, held back by the same protection, then he felt someone behind him, hands grabbing his arms and reaching for the chain around his neck, yanking it backwards until the links broke and the demon in front of him laughed silently and pushed itself into him.

Held inside his mind, Lee watched in helpless horror as he leaned forward and ripped the chain from Krissy's neck, seeing her terrified expression and knowing that she looked at the demon possessing him. As her pendant fell, the smoke whipped into her, and a moment later her eyes were a flat black, blinking at him, a slow, lascivious smile stretching out her mouth.

The screams and struggles were over quickly, the people who filled the compound getting to their feet and walking toward the gate as it opened, moving together in an orderly fashion. On the towers the half-angels watched them, turning as the sound of marching feet from the other side of the valley drowned out every other noise and they saw the pass filled with bodies, animated and precise, every eye black.

* * *

_**Hell**_

Sam slowed down as he approached the outcropping, looking around the cavern of ice carefully. Was this the Cage? It had to be, but it didn't seem like a prison, a profusion of tunnels opening from both larger and smaller caves. He stopped beside the sword and looked down at the hilt, long and of some dark substance, engraved for grip and enclosed in a delicate basketwork of gold. _Sword in the stone_. The thought, and its attendant implications flashed through his mind and he managed a small, self-deprecating smile, a gentle mockery of himself. He was no hero, no worldly saviour. But he still had a job to do.

Reaching out, his fingers hovered over the elaborate hilt for a long moment as another thought hit him. The Throne had called to him, had somehow known him. What if the sword was the same? A trap for him, to pull him back into the devil's influence? Withdrawing his hand, he reached into the deep pocket of his coat and pulled out a large square bandanna, shaking it out of its crumpled ball impatiently and wrapping it around his hand. Even it was safe for him to touch, he realised he didn't want to. Didn't want to lay his fingers where the archangel had gripped, didn't want the slightest contact with whatever might've remained of Lucifer's spirit or physical remains.

He reached out again and closed his hand around the hilt, lifting. Nothing happened. The blade remained firmly embedded in the ice. Sam moved closer to the ice slab and tried again, exerting pressure on the side of the hilt in an attempt to wiggle it free with the same lack of result.

Was he the one to get this sword, he wondered a little uncertainly? Was there someone else more fit than him who would be able to draw it free? His gaze fell on the cloth protecting his hand. Or was the sword waiting for the touch of something it recognised?

Moving around the outcrop, he tried again from the other side, bracing his knee against the slick surface as he strained to lift the blade out. It was immovable, frozen in place, and he released it and leaned against the ice, panting slightly with the effort of the last pull, his body aching and tired from the demands of the last few levels, staring at the hilt in frustration. He was running on fumes, he knew. He couldn't waste time on this.

He unwound the bandanna and shoved it into his coat pocket, taking a deep breath as he leaned close to the sword again and reached for the hilt. Closing his fingers around the cold, hard grip, the ice immediately began to steam, and Sam leaned back as the frozen solid changed to gas without the interim step of transforming to liquid, filling the cavern with dry, cold fog, billowing up to the concave ceiling. In a moment, the slab had vanished completely and he stood in the centre of the cavern, holding the sword, barely able to see a foot in front of him. He lifted the sword and looked at the blade. It was pitted and blackened, spotted and smeared with some kind of tarnish, leprous and spread across the metal. Something to do with Lucifer? Or the ice? Or the evil of the devil?

Dragging the bandanna out again, he hurriedly wrapped the long blade with it and shoved through his belt, adjusting it until it lay flat against the flat outer muscles of his thigh, the hilt wrapped and resting outside of his coat.

The marker.

He closed his eyes and tried to visualise it, images swimming in and out of his mind's eyes, his thoughts and memories and the exact visualisations of the triangular marks he'd brought in seething together as he struggled against the anticlimactic exhaustion that was drowning him.

The image appeared and he felt a sickening lurch, a vertiginous drop, and blackness pressing tight against him, thick and viscous and filling his mouth and nose with a scent of burning metal as the levels of the plane shifted around him.

The stop was jarring and Sam's eyes flew open, widening as he took in the valley and the mesh strung high above it, the thundery sky louring over them. He felt the draining suck of his energy a second later and swung around to see the black-robed demon behind him, skeletal hand twice the size of his own, reaching out for him, the darkness inside the cowled hood facing him impenetrable and terrifying.

It was an automatic reaction and he just lashed out, gripping the archdemon's wrist without thought. Instantly he felt himself falling, every atom of energy fed to the rapacious creature he held. At the same time, a high-pitched sound drilled through the cavities in his skull, bursting the capillaries in his sinuses and behind his eyes, blood gushing from his nose and eyes and ears until the backlash of the energy drain blasted him backwards and he released the bony arm.

_Third level_, he thought blearily. _Need the first_. The image of the triangle, deeply engraved with the numeral one popped into his head and he was once again shrouded in the darkness as the plane rippled and bulged and folded.

The cracked obsidian gates were there in front of him, and he staggered toward them, every step feeling as if the air he moved through was thickening, holding him back. He could hear his heart pounding against his ears, hear the dry rasp and hitch of the breaths he forced in and out of his lungs. Distantly he could feel the Fallen's rage and pain and need for his life, and he tried to force his legs to move faster, lurching from side to side as he crossed the razor-sharp rocks toward the cliffside where the guardian's blood would let him back into the borderlands.

Every single part of him was aching, stabbing him with pain or, he realised belatedly, beginning to burn. He wiped at his nose and eyes, the thick metallic taste of his blood on his tongue, down his throat, his hands streaked and painted with the blood that was still leaking down his face, and a warm coating down the sides of his neck. He peered toward the rising wall in front of him, his hand diving into the inside pocket of his shirt and pulling out the second vial as he stumbled up to the pitted rock face, feeling another spurt of blood trickling down his neck as he registered the far-off scream of the demon behind him.

The ground, he remembered from opening the door to get in, the ground drinks and the door opens. He yanked the stopper from the top and poured out the blood onto the black soil, hearing the grinding of the stone as it began to move, the scream coming again, closer this time, fresh blood spilling from the corner of his eyes. Wiping at them desperately, Sam forced himself into the slowly-widening split in the rock, not feeling the cuts and bruising where he pushed too fast or too hard before the gap was wide enough, falling out onto the grey and yellow earth on his hands and knees as he made it through. He dragged in a breath, trying to override the spread of the bubbling heat he could feel coruscating through the blood paths of his body, and threw himself forward, like a runner off a mark, his feet almost tripping him up, slower than the rest of him. For an endless moment his arms windmilled helplessly as he struggled to get his feet moving faster before he went down, then they caught up and he hobbled down the bank of the river, staring down stream then up for the stepping stones that would take him back to the gate.

He could hear the door closing behind him, wondered if the archdemon would be able to open it, wondered if it would give him enough time to get across the river before the damned thing got there.

The crunch of the boat's prow onto the bank startled him and he swung around, looking in astonishment at the boatman who stood a few feet from him, the silver eyes bright under the heavy red brows.

"Quickly."

"What?" Sam said in confusion, glancing back over his shoulder as he heard the stone grinding slowly again. "What?"

"QUICKLY!" Charon said, gesturing to the boat. Sam tottered toward it, gripping the low gunwales and half-falling into it as the boatman pushed them from the shore, out into the current, spinning the boat around, poling and then sculling fast across to the other side where the willows lined the grassy banks.

Sam sat up in the bottom of the boat, leaning against the seat and staring behind them. The door in the cliffs was still opening slowly, hotter air swirling through the opening and kicking up the soft, powdery dust in front of it.

The boat hit the far shore, under the trailing branches of the willow and Sam winced as his back hit the hard timber edge of the seat, scrambling around on his knees.

"Go, get out." Charon told him, the boatman's voice deep and harsh. "You must get through the gate before it comes."

"Can it follow me?" Sam jumped over the high prow, falling to his knees on the soft bank and looking back.

Charon nodded. "Asmodeus can leave Hell in pursuit of a soul. You must _go_."

He pushed off the bank, the boat sliding backward out into the river and Sam crawled up the slope, getting his feet under him as he came out of the willow's sheltering canopy and lunging across the short grass to the shimmer of the gate in a half-run, half-walk. He could see, through a slit in the air above the ground, the drier ground of the three-fold valley in South Dakota, a Dali impression wreathed in a pale tendril of lavender-coloured smoke.

Dean was still there, he thought, almost incoherently, fighting to stay upright through the rapidly progressing waves of exhaustion that were hitting him harder and harder. The gate was open and his brother was there, waiting for him. He tripped and fell a few feet from the opening, and heard the buzzing shriek of the demon behind him, not even trying to get up this time, just crawling as fast as he could for that slim line of blue sky and hot sunshine.

* * *

Dean's eyes widened as Sam collapsed on the ground, hair and brows and face still frosted with ice and covered with blood, the snow trapped in his clothes melting in the hot summer sunshine. A mind-drilling shriek followed him out of the crack in the rock.

"SAM!"

He sprinted past the fire, grabbing his brother's shoulders and hauling him to his feet, his gaze flicking over Sam's face and neck, over the red staining his clothes, looking for the wounds.

"Dean, one of the Fallen is coming!" Cas yelled, running to the fire and kicking the bowl from the flames and coals as the hunter dragged Sam clear of the gap in the rock. "We have to go!"

"Sam –"

The rock face was closing but not quickly enough and Dean turned as the high-pitched squeal came again, feeling the gush of blood down his face from the corners of his eyes, running over his mouth as it poured from his nose. He caught a glimpse of the angel, wings upraised as he cleared the fire. Then the angel was next to him and he saw the darkness as it seeped through the narrowing crack in the rock face.

The glimpse that snagged him was fragmented and too fast to register fully, but he saw the blackened bones of the hand that reached around the edge of the gate, caught the gleam of a misshapen skull within the dark hood as it flung up its head and flinched back from the warm sunlight pouring into the valley. The angel's wings cut off his view and he felt a strong grip close around his shoulder. The world spun and darkness enveloped him, dissolving his hold on his brother, taking his breath and senses away, wrenching him as they disappeared from the three-fold valley floor.

* * *

Asmodeus howled as the sunlight burned through him, bright and unnatural and a torment to eyes and shape and form that had only known the dim light of the accursed plane for too many thousands of years. The force of his fury, at the pain, at the disappearance, burst outward, blowing the gate and the rock face and the ridge, dirt and trees and rock and great hunks of earth flying up and smashing back into the ground as the ground shook in the square half-mile surrounding the gate and began to collapse. The car slid down the disappearing ridge and fell into the crater, earth and rock and debris covering it over, burying it until there was nothing to see but a shallow depression in the ground, all signs of the demon, the gate and the valley that had held it, gone.

* * *

_**June 29, 2013. West Keep, Kansas**_

Dean felt his knees creak as they appeared on the keep roof, his hold around Sam tightening automatically when his younger brother staggered to one side. Sam blinked, straightening as the warmth of the night soaked into him, unfreezing the last of the pockets of cold in his body.

"Dean, where are we?"

"Back at the keep, man. Hold it together, okay?" Dean looked down at the partially-wrapped sword swinging at his brother's side. "That it?"

"Yeah," Sam told him, looking down. "I have to do the spell."

"You can take a minute."

"No," Cas said, stepping away from them and looking north and east. "Do it now, Sam."

"What?" Dean frowned at the angel.

Castiel flicked a glance toward him. "I don't know. But it would be – safer – if Sam completed the trial now."

"He's right," Sam said, wiping the moisture from his face as he looked down at the sword. He turned to the angel. "I have to hold this, while I do it?"

Cas looked at the sword, unconsciously drawing back a little from it. "I think so."

"Dean, step back," Sam said, lifting the archangel's weapon from his belt and unwinding the bandanna from the hilt and top of the blade. He held the hilt loosely in both hands, the tip pointing upward.

The harshly guttural words were discordant in the soft air and Dean watched Sam's face uneasily. This time, as the last word was uttered, Sam stiffened, both hands clenching hard around the hilt. There was no heat. Light flickered deep under Sam's skin and grew, Dean stepping forward as he lifted his arm across his face, a fast glance at the angel showing Cas' eyes narrowed as he watched, his expression perplexed.

The light flared out in a coronial aura around Sam and he dropped to his knees, flames of white and silver and gold wreathing along the bright blade from his hands, burning off the spots and marks and smears of black tarnish. From hilt to tip the blade shone, the flames reflecting in the polished metal.

Dean blinked as the light and flames vanished together, the warm dark night pulsing with their afterimages. Then he heard Sam begin to cough, then hack.

"Cas, light," he snapped and stepped forward, catching his little brother before he could fall forward and impale himself on the sword he still held. Dean was careful to keep his hands away from the blade, grabbing Sam's shoulders and easing him down on his side.

"What is it?" he asked the angel as Cas approached and a diffuse glow surrounded them. "What the fuck is happening to him?"

"I don't know," Cas said, kneeling beside the younger hunter. He reached out tentatively, fingertips brushing against the side of Sam's forehead as Sam retched again, into a growing pool of dark blood next to him.

"I can't help him," the angel said after a moment, looking back at Dean. "The – contract – or whatever this is – it's below basal levels, I can't heal what he's going through."

"Great," Dean snarled. "Take us down to medical, would you?"

* * *

Dean stood back from the bed, watching as Malley and Merrin intubated his brother, Sam lying back against the crisp white pillow, his hair long and lank, his skin waxen and grey under the pale olive tones. He was shaking continuously, rattling the bed-frame and muttering something too low to make out.

"Transfusion?" Merrin asked, her voice clipped.

"No," Malley told her, glancing back at Dean. "Just saline."

"He's losing blood," the nurse argued.

"He's supposed to be," Dean said, taking a step closer as Sam erupted into a fit of coughing, blood and a thick, dark phlegm spraying from his mouth and nose across the white sheet.

"Can you take this?" Merrin gestured at the sword lying beside Sam on the bed. It'd been partly wrapped in a white cloth.

"No."

Castiel looked at the nurse's affronted expression. "Do not touch it. It will kill anyone but Sam. Leave it and when he returns to consciousness he will be able to secure it."

"_If _he returns to consciousness," Merrin muttered mutinously, moving around the other side of the bed to wipe her patient's face.

Dean's mouth thinned and he turned away. Castiel followed him into the hall.

"Where's Jimmy?"

"No idea."

"I must find him," Cas said distractedly.

"He probably won't give his consent again, Cas," Dean warned him softly, remembering the man's bitterness.

The angel looked at him for a moment then disappeared. Bob came out of the room and stopped, looking at Dean.

"He's more or less stable," he said shortly. "The fever's down and he's sleeping."

"Good."

"Dean, he could die with what's happening to him," Malley said.

Dean looked at him, his expression flat. "I know."

* * *

The apartment had been cleaned. Dean stopped in the doorway to the living room and looked around in disbelief.

Books sat tidily on their shelves, the dirty dishes and mugs and saucepans had been washed and put away, the table was cleared and polished, throws and cushions plumped and smoothed on the armchairs and sofa, floor swept and vacuumed. He took a step into the room, and swung around, long strides taking him to the bedroom. Pushing open the door, he smelled the changes first, windows open to catch the sunlit breeze, the pile of dirty clothes that had been piled on the floor gone, the linen on the bed changed and smelling subtly of some herbal fabric softener, the bed made and the nightstands cleaned.

Going to the closet, he wrenched open the door. His clothes were there, washed and folded, shirts and jackets hanging neatly.

Rage bubbled then burned as he realised that everything of Alex's, every piece of clothing, all the small things, her notes … her scent … had gone.

The small metal knob under his hand creaked as his fist tightened around it. _They had no right_. The thought beat at him in time with his accelerating pulse. No fucking _right_ to come in here and take the little he'd had left.

He slammed the closet door shut and walked to the living room, gaze flicking around the room for the phone. It sat on the desk, and he started toward it, then stopped abruptly. It didn't matter who'd done it or why. He knew why. Knew that they thought he wasn't dealing.

And that was true. He wasn't dealing. For a moment, he swayed in the centre of the living room, then he shifted to the left and sat down on the sofa, the anger disappearing, a disorienting confusion left behind.

_I can't find her pulse._

He'd looked down at her, seeing the dust that had coated her eyes, the bloodless wound along her cheek, the stillness in her … all the things that spoke of death and had ignored them, trying to find something that would make that fact not true, not real. _I do, you know_. The sharp, discrete memory hit him and he leaned back, feeling the cracks widening, that titanic wave coming for him. He hadn't told her, told her he did too, hadn't said it and she'd died without knowing. He remembered Hell, remembered everything that had happened in the pit, how it'd been and how it'd felt and those memories faded and dimmed under the onslaught of agony that flooded through him now. He had let himself hope. Let himself look to a future. And that had been a mistake. There was no hope. No future.

The sunshine coming through the windows tracked across the room gradually, the shadows changing, lengthening as the sun moved from east to west. The small apartment darkened as daylight bled out of the sky. The pain hadn't diminished, it flowed unchecked and uncontrolled, eating at him. There was no escape, no overload possible, no welcomed descent into the oblivion of unconsciousness. Memories rolled through and each one held a dagger, each one was connected to hundreds of others, he couldn't find the off switch, wasn't sure that he wanted to even. A part of him _wanted_ to feel it, have it eviscerate him until there was nothing left.

* * *

Dean blinked and looked around. He felt empty, exhausted and dry and empty. The apartment was in darkness. He could barely make out the faint outline of the windows in the kitchen. He leaned back, closing his eyes. They felt sore, gritty and aching.

The change in the room was silent and invisible but he felt it. Opening his eyes, his gaze focussed on the wall beside the hearth.

"We had a deal," he said, the words coming out cracked through a throat that was filled with powdered glass.

"I didn't welsh on it," the entity said mildly, substance thickening in the deep gloom until a man stood there, tall and skeletally thin, dignified in an old-fashioned black suit, a starched white shirt and thin, string tie.

"Bullshit," Dean said, forcing himself to lean forward. "It should've been me – at least I could've done the job, and it wouldn't've mattered, not after she – but not Sam."

"You seem very certain of your facts, Dean," Death said, moving to the armchair opposite the sofa, his face smooth and expressionless, the dark eyes glinting slightly in the deep sockets.

"There another way to look at this?" Dean asked derisively, the emotion a bare flicker. "You telling me I missed something?"

Death sat down, inclining his head slightly. "I think that you've given up."

"Fuck you."

"Mind your tone." The warning was instant and chill.

"Go ahead," Dean said, shaking his head. "I got nothing left to lose."

"On the contrary." Death moved his hand and a selection of fried food appeared on the table between them. Dean looked down at the platters and bowls disinterestedly.

"There is a great deal left to lose," the entity continued, picking up a crispy, golden round of pickle and dipping it into a pool of ketchup in a bowl. "I told you that you would affect every line, Dean."

"You told me I'd be closing the gates," Dean countered furiously, ignoring the crunching noises coming from the being opposite. "You told me she'd be safe."

"There are no guarantees in this world or any other," Death said prosaically. "Try the pickles, they're excellent." He looked at the man's surly expression and sighed. "You are the one who is changing the lines, Dean. At the time I told you about the gates, that was the only future that was foreseeable. Something else has happened, to have changed that."

"Something else?" Dean asked sardonically. "The second trial needed Lucifer's sword. Which only Sam can touch. Which means I couldn't've gotten it."

"That's not entirely true," Death said, picking up a French fry and consuming it. "You are needed. That is as valid now as it ever was."

Dean ignored that. "Why didn't you come when I was looking for you?"

For a moment, Death looked at him consideringly. The nerves on the back of Dean's prickled at that careful regard. Then the entity shrugged slightly.

"I couldn't help you," it said simply.

"Stop lying to me!" he snapped disbelievingly. "You could've brought her back!"

"I am not lying to you," Death told him, voice hardening. "There was nothing I could have done to give you what you wanted."

Dean turned away, brows drawn together. "Thanks for nothing then."

"Your brother has not completed his task and he will need your help to do it."

"It's gonna kill him," Dean rasped. "Why the fuck should I help with that?"

He could feel the ancient eyes on him, the silence stretching out in the dark room. _I'll do whatever I have to do, I'll storm fucking Hell if that's what's needed_ … his words echoed in the empty wasteland. He'd meant it. It'd been his end of the deal. Before the rest had gone south.

"What the hell can I do?" he asked, head dropping into his hands.

"The fallen angels have been raising the dead –"

"Yeah, and how's that possible, since that's your area?" Dean lifted his head to look at Death.

"They have no souls, the dead," Death said, a thread of irritation along the dry voice. "They are meat now, animated by a spell only. I have nothing to do with it." He looked down at the table and made an impatient gesture and the food disappeared. "They are raising the bodies to be inhabited by demons. And one of Lucifer's has climbed out of Hell to this plane."

Dean rubbed a hand tiredly over his face. "He didn't stick around."

"Not Asmodeus," Death corrected him acerbically. "Belial."

The name meant little to the hunter. He looked at the entity, one brow lifted.

"Belial is the ruler of the sixth level," Death explained. "Of all those in Lucifer's command, he is the only one who can cross to this plane and remain on it."

"And?"

"And," Death ground out in annoyance. "He is the leader of the Horde of Hell, in Lucifer's absence. He draws a darkness over the land as he passes to protect the demons from the light of the natural world."

"Demons don't seem to have that much problem with sunlight," Dean frowned.

"Not in a vessel," Death agreed. "But the demons of the abyss cannot tolerate light."

Dean sighed as he realised what Death was saying. "How many?"

"I don't know. Many."

"And the hits just keep on comin'," Dean muttered to himself. "What the hell am I supposed to do about that?"

"Your brother will be alone and exposed in the last trial," the entity said slowly. "Do you think he will be able to complete it if the Horde are alerted to what he is doing?"

Dean's eyes narrowed abruptly. "You're telling me Sam needs a diversion."

Death leaned back in the chair and looked at him. "That is what I am telling you."

* * *

"How's he doing?" Dean leaned against the door frame and looked at the bed. Beside him, Merrin scowled.

"His vitals are stable," she said, making a note on the chart she held. "He's slightly anaemic, but we can't give him a transfusion. He'll have to stay here until his red cell count is stronger."

"How long?"

She looked up at him, seeing past the lack of expression on Dean's face. "A few weeks." Turning to look at the man lying in the bed, she shrugged slightly. "He has no reserves of anything right now, Dean. We're feeding him, trying to stop his body from consuming itself, but that will take time."

Dean nodded. "What about his hand?"

"Bob doesn't know what it is," Merrin admitted reluctantly, looking at Sam's heavily bandaged hand. "It is healing, with the order's cream, but the burn went down to his bones."

"Is it the same kind of burn as you found in his lungs?"

"No, those are lesions, not burns." She shook her head. "Something is eating him, from the inside out, but we can't find anything in his bloodwork or tissues, or in the bone marrow or cells."

"It's God, Merrin," Dean said humourlessly. "God's eating him."

She looked at him as he turned away and started down the hall, unsure if he'd been serious or not. Something was working in Sam Winchester, she knew. Something was changing every cell in his body.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Candle-light flickered over the platters and plates set on the long dining table, the soft golden light of the wall sconces giving the room a warm glow. Jerome sat at one end of the table, watching the hunter next to him consume the food on his plate steadily, without appearing to taste what he was eating.

"Michel has located Nintu in Connecticut and she's heading north. The records from the Church have the lakes region in Maine as a prison for the first shapeshifter."

"Awesome," Dean remarked around a mouthful of food, chewing and swallowing and lifting the next without pausing.

"We can intercept her," Penemue said diffidently. "And that will be a large problem solved."

"Probably not before she frees her offspring," Jasper said tersely.

"Can't have everything," Elias noted, his gaze flicking between the scholar and the hunter across the table. "Getting the goddess is the priority."

Dean finished the last mouthful and pushed his plate aside, eyes dark and hooded as he looked around the table. "That and getting rid of the werewolf."

He saw them shift in their chairs, fiddling with their cutlery and smiled inwardly at the reluctance in their faces to contradict him.

"We can go through Michigan," Nate said practically. "Head into Maine from the north."

"Good," Dean said. "We'll have two to three weeks for this. We'll leave in the morning."

"What about the Grigori?" Baraquiel leaned forward and looked at him. "Castiel confirmed that they have Kokabiel. If they have coerced into our brother into raising the demons –"

"So far, we got zombies in Europe and China, right?" Dean asked, his gaze flicking to Jerome for confirmation. The legacy nodded.

"They'll be looking for survivors here, but we haven't had anything suggesting that they're making zombies here."

The Qaddiysh glanced at each other.

"That might be a matter of time," Penemue said.

"Yeah, might be," Dean acknowledged. "But we gotta get on with what we can while we're waiting."

"We'll need an army, Dean," Rufus said stiffly, his gaze sliding to Jackson. "We can't just sit around and wait for them to come to us."

"Knock yourselves out," the hunter said, pushing back his chair and getting up. "You don't need me for that." He looked around the table again, stopping as his eyes met those of the older hunter. "No point pretending we don't all know what the situation is," he added, leaning on the back of the straight-backed chair. "Franklin said you sent out a couple of groups to clean out the bases in Oklahoma."

Jackson nodded. "They'll be back in a week or so."

"Vince and Rona still at Tawas?" Dean asked Rufus.

"Yeah."

"Tell them to take Ernie, Travis and Marsh and go hunting the bases, out east maybe," he said shortly. "Somewhere there'll be planes – doesn't matter what the fuck kind they are so long as they can fly – if we drop cans of gas on those fuckers, it'll help." He looked at Jackson, wondering if he should be sharing Death's revelations about the archdemon. He decided against it for now. "We find planes and we'll have an advantage. Maybe not much of one, but we're not being fussy."

"We've looked for planes –" Rufus started to argue and Dean cut him off.

"Yeah, when we had no time and other things to worry about. Tell Vince not to come back without one."

He walked out of the room, leaving those at the table silent behind him.

* * *

_**Camp Tawas, Lake Tawas, Michigan**_

Peter leaned on the table, looking over the map that was spread across it. Blue crosses marked the sightings of the pack, and they were in a loose circle around the two camps, mostly in the fields that Kenny had been struggling to get planted.

"How many were in the last sighting?" he asked Boze, who leaned against the table.

"Eight," the big hunter answered. "That's probably about what got away when Maurice was turned."

"They're not coming any closer than the farms?" Elias looked at him.

"No," Boze confirmed. "Smart enough to know that we'll have to come out in the winter if we've got nothing to eat here."

Dean stood to one side, leaning against the bookshelf near the hearth. "You seen Maurice since?"

Boze shook his head. "I thought maybe, he'd gotten loose. There was some scat over in the remains of Sable," he said, lifting a hand in a vague gesture. "But they pinned us down and I couldn't go check."

Penemue watched Winchester carefully. The situation was difficult, but the hunter seemed almost relaxed about it, listening but not adding much to the discussion. As if he'd already made up his mind, he thought uneasily.

"We'll have a look around in the morning," Dean said, straightening up. "Silver'll work on all of them except the alpha, right?"

Boze nodded. "Yeah, but they're fast, Dean," he said worriedly. "I mean animal-fast – they're pretty much wolves when they transform – and getting the shots, not that easy."

Dean smiled at him, green eyes remaining unchanged. "I gotta couple of ideas about that, Boze. We'll figure out the best play tomorrow." He yawned widely. "Drive's not getting any easier, I could use a bed."

"Right," Boze said, looking around at the others. "First floor, end of the hall. Pick a room."

"Thanks."

Penemue watched him saunter out of the room. The pretence was good, he had to admit, but he didn't believe it. He glanced at the others, wondering if he should bring it to their attention. It didn't seem like Dean had anything planned before morning, anyway.

* * *

The moon was only a quarter-full, and less than halfway across the sky when Dean slipped through the black shadows of the camp wall and dropped into the outside ditch, picking his way to the corner of the compound and cutting across the sharply inclining slope down to the lake. He was carrying a long silver knife at the back of his belt and several magazines of silver bullets for the automatic, tucked into his coat pockets.

They'd smell him, he knew, the night breeze increasing slightly, carrying his scent down to the forest. He was hoping that one would recognise that scent, but he was prepared to take them all on to get to that one.

He'd met Maurice first in 2003, just before his father had taken off for Boston and sent him down to Texas. The quietly-spoken hunter had surprised him, his face slightly round, short-cut curly hair a light brown back then. It hadn't been until he'd looked into the man's eyes and seen the sharp intelligence there that he'd re-evaluated his opinion that the guy was too soft to be a hunter. In all the years he'd known him, Maurice had always thought first, acted second, and in many ways, he'd learned what he knew about thinking through all the possible consequences of a course of action from watching him, hunting with him.

John Winchester had held the man in the highest regard, he knew. That had been enough for him until he'd worked with him and come to realise why. The camps in Michigan, the survivors who'd made it through, the offensive in Atlanta. All of it had succeeded because he'd had Maurice around, and the other hunters like him.

He worked his way down through the woods to the shore of the lake, stopping frequently to listen to the quiet night, stretching out his senses as far as he could, his nervous system thrumming, everything on high alert.

"Dean."

Dean closed his eyes and turned around slowly. The man behind him hadn't made a sound and he looked into Maurice's eyes, searching them for any sign that he wasn't in control, that he was angling for an attack. He couldn't find any.

"Not the way I'd hoped to see you again," Maurice said softly, glancing behind him into the darkness under the trees. "And we can't stay here, they're hunting tonight."

Following him along the lake's shore, Dean watched him move silently and gracefully through the tangled undergrowth, evidently in control enough to utilise the enhanced senses of the wolf in him without it taking over. He put his feet where Maurice had put his and the two hunters walked through the woods like ghosts, not even a trembling leaf showing their passing.

"Where are we going?" Dean asked, his voice barely a breath.

"Sable," Maurice answered, slowing for a moment and tilting his head as he listened.

Dean couldn't hear anything but the man in front of him remained immobile, and he did the same, withdrawing into himself slightly. The breeze had gone around, coming down the woods and he caught the faintest whiff of dog on it. His own scent would be carried down across the water.

"Alright, come on, faster," Maurice said a moment later. "Raat wanted to press closer to the camp tonight."

The quarter moon threw a faint light over the shore edge, enough to be able to see the rocks and the roots that reached down to the water. Dean followed Maurice around the lake and into the woods on the other side, aware of the breeze that kept them downwind of the pack, aware of the lack of noise in the forest, aware that he was well and truly on his own here with Maurice, and it was only his faith in the other man that was keeping him from pulling the automatic out and firing a half-dozen through his back and into his heart.

The ruins of Camp Sable were overgrown and almost invisible, trees thrusting up through what had been stone paved roads and the craters from the plane attack filled with brambles and bracken, still pools in the basements, reflecting only darkness.

Maurice led them down a set of moss-covered concrete stairs, and Dean ducked under the thickly twined vines in the remaining frame of a doorway.

"We should be alright here," Maurice said quietly, turning around and looking at Dean. "Even if the wind changes, they won't pick up our scent here."

"Are you alright?" Dean asked, looking at him in the dim light.

Maurice laughed softly. "No, but that's not the issue, is it?" He gestured to the blocks of stone that had tumbled down into the basement, sitting down on one. "The blood of Raat will kill him."

Dean looked down at another block, then back at him. "And without killing him, how're we supposed to get it?"

"I'll draw his attention, you stick that silver blade into him, wipe the blood on the bullets you got and shoot him in the heart."

"Piece of cake."

The soft laugh came out of the dimness again. "Do-able, Dean. It's do-able."

"Yeah."

"There's something else," Maurice said. Dean could see his eyes, a very dim glow in the darkness. "Once he's dead, the rest of his get – we'll lose some of the powers we have."

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure exactly, I had to be careful with what I was asking, but I think that the transformations aren't as powerful when he's not around."

Dean nodded slowly. "That'll help, a little."

"I need a favour too," Maurice said, hearing the other man's long exhale. "I can't trust anyone else to do it. Boze – he froze on me –"

"I know," Dean said neutrally. "He told me what happened."

"Maybe that was meant," Maurice said, looking around and shrugging. "So I could do this much, but I can't live like this."

"You've got pretty good control over it."

"Raat told me, Dean, if we don't take human hearts, we become wolves, eventually. Forget what it is to be a man, or don't care."

In the silence that followed, Maurice wondered at Dean's thoughts. He was relieved when the younger hunter cleared his throat.

"Alright."

"Thank you."

There was a scrape of boot over rock as Dean got to his feet. "Don't – don't thank me, okay?" He turned and looked at the indistinct outline of the hunter. "Where do we find him?"

"He'll be north and west, near the boundaries of Kenny's place, out on 23."

"Let's go."

* * *

Lying on the forest floor, the rich, dark smell of the decaying leaves filling his nose, Dean strained to hear Maurice's movement. The werewolf's senses had pinpointed the alpha, and he'd told Dean where to wait, downwind and screened from the clearing by a massive deadfall between the trees. His hand was curled around the hilt of the silver knife but he couldn't hear anything, couldn't see anything in the dense black shadows beneath the deadfall. He could feel the seconds ticking by and hoped like hell he hadn't been played.

The snarl was shockingly loud and he had to exert every bit of control to keep from starting back at the apparent closeness of it, answered by a deeper growl and the rustle of leaf and green branch as the wolves raced into the clearing in front of him and circled each other.

Raat was huge, the thick black pelt threaded through with silver, rippling in the faint light with the heavy muscles moving beneath it. Beside him, Maurice looked small and wiry, silver-grey fur catching the stray moonbeams that filtered through the canopy of the trees.

On his feet, Dean slipped around the deadfall and between the trees, keeping himself out of sight as he waited for the wolves to engage. It was do-able, he thought with a slight twitch of humour, but it was going to need precise timing and a shitload of speed to get in and out again before the monster wolf could turn on him.

Maurice darted in, jaws snapping and Raat reared up, dropping on the smaller wolf and pinning him down. Dean was running in that second, accelerating, not thinking of getting in and out, just of getting the knife-blade into the alpha. He jumped onto the high shoulders, stabbing down and Raat lifted his head, the howl throbbing through the night air and cut off abruptly as Maurice's jaws closed tightly around the briefly exposed throat. Dean rolled off, his fingers digging for the Colt, the bloody knife in one hand as he popped the magazine and smeared the viscous, oily liquid down the open slot in the metal box, ramming it back in and lifting the gun. The first round was plain silver and it punched through fur, muscle and bone, the expanding hollow point shredding what it hit. The second round loaded into the chamber and Dean pulled the trigger slowly, gun braced by both hands, his aim accurate despite the wild efforts of Raat to get free of Maurice's jaws, both animals twisting and rolling across the clearing.

The retorts filled the clearing, and distantly Dean heard other howls. The second bullet had hit the heart and the black wolf shuddered deeply, toppling to the ground as the blood smeared over the silver slug mixed with the blood pumping through his heart.

Rolling to his feet, Maurice wiped his mouth, his body scored with claw marks, the deep bite in his shoulder red and torn, a pile of silver-grey fur scattered over the ground at his feet.

He turned to look at Dean. "Now."

The big bore of the automatic turned and the shot echoed in the stillness of the clearing. Dean looked down at the hole in his friend's chest and turned away, listening more closely to the ululations as he reoriented himself in the direction of Boze's settlement.

* * *

_**Indian Pond, Maine**_

"You know, if you're gonna do this all on your own, we didn't need to come along," Elias said bitterly as they moved through the thick woods toward the big pond. "Coulda stayed back in Kansas and worried about the Grigori."

Dean lifted a brow at him mildly. "It worked."

"And you coulda got yourself killed," Elias said frustratedly. "Coulda been turned, now that would've been handy, right? Two fucking hunters lost to the thing, no one to help out Sam –"

Dean's expression flattened out. "It worked," he said again, the warning implicit in his tone.

Elias lengthened his stride, muttering under his breath as he pulled away. Peter glanced at his retreating back and looked at Dean.

"He's right." He gestured around vaguely. "We're here to hunt these things down together and going off solo was a stupid risk."

Dean shrugged. He knew what it had been. It'd worked. So far as he was concerned, that was the end of it. He turned to look at the Qaddiysh, walking a little to one side and just behind him.

"Michel's marker said she'd be here?"

Penemue nodded. "Moving along the southern shore five minutes ago."

"You and the others have to get clear, right?" Dean asked, glancing at Baraquiel and Shamsiel. "Or you get sucked in too?"

"Yes, we'll move further north, call you if she changes direction," Penemue replied, tapping the headset he wore against one ear.

"Better peel off now," Peter said, seeing the glint of the water in the sunlight through the trees ahead.

"Good luck," Penemue told them, turning right and following a trail through the forest, his brothers following him.

None of them knew what to expect, not really, Dean thought, looking at the wider trail ahead of him. Sam'd said that the other one had created an insistence in them, an arousal that had gone bone-deep. This sister was also creative, albeit the flip-side. What did that mean, exactly?

"Any ideas?" he asked Peter, slowing as the Roman hunter reached a cross-trail and stopped, looking down toward the lake.

"Not really," Peter said distractedly. "Katherine suggested it would be more along the lines of a blood-lust, a need for power, possibly."

"Awesome."

Peter grinned. "We only have to get it into her path, the box is supposed to do the rest."

"What about the spell?"

"You want to draw straws?"

"No." Dean scowled at him. "I'll sit behind the box, say the spell and close the lid."

"Elias might have something to say about that."

"He can eat me."

Peter raised a brow slightly. "What's going on, Dean?"

"Nothing."

Peter reached out, his hand closing around Dean's arm. "We will follow you anywhere, willingly, except to die for nothing, because that's what you want."

Dean met his eyes steadily. "That's not what I want."

"Then prove it," Peter said lightly, releasing him. "Elias can close the box."

The auburn-haired hunter had walked back to them and looked at Dean questioningly.

"Fine," Dean said sourly, looking from Peter to Elias. "Be my guest."

He handed the smooth wooden box over and gestured at the trail. "Take lake-side or forest-side?"

"Forest-side," Peter said, nodding as Elias set the box on the ground and opened the lid. He looked at them. "You feel like cutting someone's throat and drinking their blood, just get into the water."

"Who told you that?" Dean asked, brow creasing.

"Jerome." Peter turned for the trees. "Water's a mutable element. He thinks it'll break any mental hold she might get over us."

"Thinks?"

Peter disappeared between the trees and Dean walked down toward the pond's shore. Winging it, again, he thought sourly. An old memory surfaced, sitting in the car, Sam's voice on the other end of the phone line.

"_Church ground is hallowed ground, whether the church is still there or not. Evil spirits cross over hallowed ground, sometimes they're destroyed, so I figured, maybe, that would get rid of it."_

_"Maybe? Maybe! What if you were wrong?" He hadn't been able to believe what he was hearing._

_"Huh. Honestly that thought hadn't occurred to me."_

It'd been the casualness of that comment that had driven him crazy. And nothing had changed, he thought, crouching down on the pebbled sand at the water's edge. Damned scholars were all the same. It would've been more helpful if they'd known what to expect out here.

"Dean? She's coming," Penemue's voice was very quiet in his ear and he shoved his memories and irritation aside, shutting off thought and feeling as he waited. He could feel it, distantly yet, but there, a crackling surge of energy in the air surrounding the pond, the acrid taste of copper, along the edge of his tongue, a tension in his body that hadn't been there a moment before.

They should've known she would be moving fast, he thought much later. But at the time, her sudden appearance in front of him came as a heart-stopping shock, dark eyes staring into his through the thin branches of a low bush, long dark hair swinging forward as she parted the vegetation and strode forward and he was scrambling backwards, his throat locked and his heart sledging against his rib-cage with the desire to fight, to rip something – _anything_ – into shreds and drink its blood.

"Here," he managed to croak as he hit a tree-trunk with his back, the impact jarring and breaking the hypnotic hold on him. He rolled fast to the side, brought up short as she stepped in front of him.

No more than a few feet from him, her eyes were fixed on his, pinning him down, an immeasurable weight dropping on top of him as he stared helplessly back.

_Almost. You can came close. Close to being one of mine. And you liked it._

The thoughts were barely coherent, bouncing in his head like a madman's screams. She was leaning over him and he had to move, had to get back to the main trail.

_Nothing in your heart. Nothing in your soul. You could be strong, hunter. Stronger than all others. You are one of us._

_NO!_

Dean felt the lick of arousal across his nervous system, he was shaking and humming with the high voltage pure energy she was feeding him and he couldn't break free from those dark eyes, almond-shaped and shadowed by long, thick lashes –

The shots were fired one after another and she jerked slightly, staggering to one side as he heard Peter's shout.

"Dean, break right, break right!"

He was able to move again, and he rolled again, under a fallen tree and not far now from the trail. On his knees then feet as he caught sight of her again, and he strained to reach the trail ahead of her, feet slipping on the moss-covered roots and leaf-fall.

Dean fell onto the trail and saw her break through a few feet down, her arm lifting and Elias flying to one side, the thick thud of his body hitting something solid and a snapping of branches as he fell to the ground. Diving behind the open wooden box, Dean turned to face her, his face twisted into a ferocious scowl as she swung toward him.

_One kiss of your blood and you could have the strength you need, the peace you look for in the earth._

_Why the fuck wasn't the box sucking her in_, he thought dazedly, fighting down the impulses that were filling him, his hands curled into tight fists, nails driving into the palms and every muscle locked into solid rigid contraction.

"_Piamo caosgon allar gigipah, drix saanir sibsi qaal caosg haala zacam iadnah_."

Peter's voice rang out along the trail and Dean saw the woman flinch and turn, long hair flying out. The spell came back to him and he cleared his throat, spitting out the mouthful of blood that filled it.

"_Piamo caosgon allar gigipah, drix saanir sibsi qaal caosg haala zacam iadnah_."

She spun around, back to him, eyes widening as she moved closer, her gaze shifting from him to the box at his feet belatedly.

"_PIAMO CAOSGON ALLAR GIGIPAH DRIX SAANIR SIBSI QAAL CAOSG HAALA ZACAM IADNAH!_" Peter yelled, levelling his gun at her as he stepped closer along the trial.

She rushed straight for Dean, and he had the confused impression of her hair spreading out, growing longer as her limbs lengthened and grew joints where none should've been, her face changing, her abdomen ballooning out. He gripped the lid of the box to keep himself from running as another pair of legs grew from her hips, a smaller pair emerging from behind her jaw –

There was a scream, in his ears and in his mind, a gust of a bitter scent, warm blood and frozen metal and then she was gone, the lid of the box wrenched from his fingers and slamming shut and the woodland trail was suddenly still and empty and quiet. He heard Peter's breath panting. Heard his own loud in and out of his lungs as he doubled over, feeling the sensations of fury and power and that enormous crackling surge of energy bleeding slowly out. At the side of the trail, Elias let out a low groan.

* * *

_**Intersection, Lake Moxie Road and US-201 S, Maine**_

"We will return them to the mountain," Baraquiel said, gesturing to the highway.

Dean frowned at him. "We might need you here. We can keep that locked up until the rest is over."

"No," Penemue said immediately, shaking his head. "If the Grigori found that with us, they would cause untold suffering with it. It must be returned, Dean, for the safety of all."

"Baraquiel and Shamsiel will take it to Peru," he continued, looking at them then turning back. "I will stay here, to fight with you and try to free Kokabiel."

Dean wanted to argue, wanted to put forth rational counters that the more angels they had on their team, the better the odds were for them. He looked away instead.

_Came close to being one of mine, and you liked it._

The dark, honey-sweet voice replayed in his head and he tried to push it away. He hadn't. He couldn't think about the temptations that had filled him, the small amount of truth she'd seen inside of him. Penemue was right, he realised darkly. Even without the Grigori getting it, the risk of anyone opening that box was too great.

"Alright," he said, looking back at them as he put the truck in gear, leaving his foot on the clutch. In the back seat, Elias was out, his arm splinted and taped to his chest to keep it still. Peter slid across the wide front seat as Penemue got in.

At the intersection, the pickup turned south and the truck turned west, heading back toward Kansas.


	22. Chapter 22 Tomorrow is a Good Day to Die

**Chapter 22 Tomorrow is a Good Day to Die**

* * *

_**July 5, 2013. Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Chuck looked up at Mitch, his face hollowed and his eyes bleary. "How long was I out for?"

"Not that long this time," Mitch told him, glancing across the room where Deirdre sat hunched over a keyboard. "About five hours."

"Did it work?" Chuck looked down at his hand, the fingers bent and stiff and aching. He tried to flex them and winced at the sharp pain that filled his hand with the incautious movement. "Did I get the third trial? Any more defences?"

"Yeah," Mitch said soothingly. "You got most of it. You hungry? I'll get some food."

"Starving," the writer admitted. "And some painkillers, giant-economy size if we've got any left."

"Comin' right up." Mitch nodded as he got up.

It was hard to focus, his head was pounding and woolly at the same time, but he could see there was something wrong with the young programmer.

"What's going on?"

Turning, Mitch looked down guiltily.

"Nothing," he tried to brush off the question, feeling the contradictory flush rising up his neck as the word came out. "Nothing that you need to worry about," he added, shrugging one shoulder.

"Come on," Chuck said, nervousness punching through the exhaustion. "What happened?"

"You had another vision," Mitch admitted. "It happened just as you were starting to come out of the – the trance."

"And?"

"It looks like the bad guys are still after you, man," Mitch said softly.

To his surprise, Chuck smiled. "So what else is new?"

"They're raising demons, over in Utah."

"I take it Dean and Rufus are working on that now?" Chuck leaned back in the chair, ignoring the growling of his stomach. Mitch heard it and took another step closer to the doorway.

"Yeah," he said quickly. "You need to eat. And sleep."

"And take a shower," Chuck agreed readily, rubbing his hands over his face.

"That too," Deidre commented from the other side of the room. "I can smell you from here."

Getting up slowly, Chuck nodded as Mitch left the room. A whole lot of things Mitch had left out and none of it good, he thought. He was stiff and sore from sitting in one place for too long and he shambled across the room to the bathroom gradually, feeling his circulation reluctantly returning. Pins and needles … everywhere. The hot water would help and food and a couple of hours of real sleep and then he'd have to grill Mitch on what had come from him while he'd been out.

* * *

_**July 6, 2013. West Keep, Kansas**_

Sam looked up as the door opened, mouth curling up in a surprised, one-sided grin as he saw the tall, dark-haired Jesuit come into the room.

Father Emilio closed the door behind him and walked to the bed, shaking his head in mock reproval as he looked at the hunter lying there.

"I think you are just trying to get out of doing any real work, Sam," he said, pulling a chair to the side of the bed. His expression became serious as he looked over the pallor of Sam's face.

"Yeah, that's me," Sam said, looking away from that careful appraisal. "Looking for an out."

"How much worse was it this time?"

Sam's gaze cut away uncomfortably, swallowing nervously as the tickle in his chest became stronger. "A lot worse."

"The burning sensation is still there?"

"Not just in the blood vessels now," Sam confirmed, meeting the priest's eyes. "It's deeper, it feels deeper."

"Has it improved at all?" Father Emilio asked, leaning closer to him. "You look thinner."

Sam shook his head. "I can't eat. It smells … I just can't eat," he said, nose wrinkling up at the memory of some of the smells that had emanated from the food Merrin had brought to him. He knew the food didn't smell that way, not to anyone else, but his stomach had churned and his bile had risen in his throat and he couldn't force it down, no matter how much he knew he needed it. The drip was still in his arm, giving him the bare essentials but it wasn't enough.

"I'm getting weaker, I think," he added uneasily, his gaze dropping to his hand, fiddling with the edge of the bedcover. "I'm sleeping now but it doesn't do anything."

"The trials are more than a test of courage and skill," Father Emilio said slowly. "They are a test of fortitude and determination."

Sam glanced at him sourly. "Not going to much good if I'm determined but too weak to lift the damned sword."

"I do not think it will come to that," the priest said, his gaze flicking to the wrapped sword that lay on the chest of drawers across the room. Sam's eyes followed. When he'd come to, the sword had been lying on the bed beside him, bright and polished. No one but him could touch it. Dean'd told him what he'd seen, the flames that had licked the blade and burned away the tarnish or whatever the black stains had been. He didn't like the symbolism. Neither, he suspected, had his brother.

"You read the last lot of translations from Chuck, didn't you?" Sam asked.

Father Emilio nodded. "Yes, I did."

"I'm not going to make it past the last trial, even if I succeed, am I?"

The priest was silent for several minutes, head bent as he considered how to answer that question. Sam watched him nervously. He'd come to value and appreciate Father Emilio's opinions and thoughts, had learned that the man didn't make snap judgements, about anything.

"_And God said to Abraham, "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you_," Father Emilio said quietly. "_And they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son._"

Sam looked at him, his forehead wrinkling. "You're telling me this is a test of faith."

The Jesuit inclined his head slightly. "It is all a test of faith, Sam. Everything that you've been through, everything that every person goes through, a test of faith to the principles by which our characters – our souls – are developed." The priest sighed and leaned back in the chair. "Your choices, my choices, they come from how we perceive the world, ourselves, those that we profess to love or care about. The real choices we make test us every single day. Do we choose to honour our father and our mother? Do we choose to do our best? Do we choose truth over lies, right over wrong … and every choice determines the path we take, whether Destiny wills it or not."

"I've made a lot of bad ones."

"And you have been driven into many of those choices by circumstances beyond your control."

"No," Sam said, his voice hardening. "No, it wasn't circumstances. I –" He stopped, a sense memory of the heat of the Lake of Fire and the freezing cold of the Wastelands sending a shiver up his spine. "I don't know if it's the effect of the contract, or if I finally started to accept what I'd done, but I did a lot of thinking, a lot of remembering, when I was moving through Hell." He looked up at the priest. "Everything I did, every action I took, those were my choices. I've accepted that, at least. My sin was pride, Emilio. Just like Lucifer."

Father Emilio looked at him carefully. "Don't look for similarities where there are none, Sam."

"I'm not," Sam said. "I failed my tests, failed the people who tried to keep me from doing that. Failed the whole goddamned world." He dragged in a breath and his lungs convulsed, a wracking paroxysm of coughing shuddering through his frame as he tried to find air to breathe. A gout of blood spattered across the covers and the floor as he turned his head away from the priest.

Father Emilio got up and got a glass of water from the nightstand, handing it to Sam as the spasms eased. Neither mentioned the blood, the priest pulling the soiled cover from the bed and picking up a clean blanket from the stack by the door. Sam swallowed the cold water slowly, feeling it trickle soothingly down the rawness of his throat, easing the pain that had been increasing gradually since he'd completed the second trial.

Finishing the water, he twisted to set the glass on the nightstand and looked back at the Jesuit. "It doesn't matter, not – not in the big picture, if I make it or not."

"Sam –"

Sam shook his head. "No. It doesn't. If I can do this, then it will have to pay for everything, and I hope –" he broke off, looking away, his throat working as he tried to find the words to explain to the priest what he'd realised the most important thing was.

Father Emilio watched him, seeing the hunter's frame tense up.

"I need my brother to see that I can do it, stick with it to the end and not fail," Sam said finally, his eyes closing. "Be able to think of me without being disappointed."

The priest sighed very softly. This then was what had been driving Sam to find the punishment he needed. He should have seen it earlier, he thought, but his observations of both men had been skewed by what he'd seen more clearly in the older Winchester, the load of responsibility Dean carried and the reasons behind it.

"Sam, Dean has never been disappointed in you," the priest said quietly. "His disappointment has always lain with himself. He believes he failed you, not that you failed him."

Sam turned his head, opening his eyes. "You don't know that, Emilio."

"I do," Father Emilio said, his face filled with compassion. "I have seen it in your brother in every decision he's made, in every interaction he's had with not only you, but with the others." He shrugged, very slightly. "What did you think drove that responsibility for your well-being, Sam? For you to live your life as you saw fit, not as he does?"

Sam couldn't answer that.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Jerome watched Dean from the end of the table, sitting back in his chair, fingers steepled as he contemplated the hunter who sat at the other end, short, dark-brown hair catching the overhead lights in pale glints as he bent over the thick wad of paper in front of him.

They had returned from the north east the day before, with the news that the dark Mother had been captured and the first-born werewolf destroyed. Maurice had also died, and while Dean had not gone into details of that, the legacy knew that he had killed him. Everyone knew it. It would've been an act of mercy, and on one level he was quite sure that the hunter knew that. On another, however, the act would remain in his memories, tormenting and haunting him, along with all the others.

He had the distinct feeling that Dean knew he was being pushed toward a particular purpose, once again. Chuck's vision had been frighteningly graphic in its detail. Dean, Rufus and Bobby were still reading it over, and along with the more vague insinuations of the instructions for the third trial and he thought that all three men were reluctant to discuss what would have to be done next.

Heaven was still manipulating. Camael had taken over the role of Voice and Scribe when Metatron had vanished from the divine plane. He and Jasper and Katherine had gone through the sketchy details of what legend and myth they had on the hierarchies and histories of Heaven with Penemue. The Qaddiysh had filled in what blanks he'd been able. None of them thought it was a coincidence, not even a happy one, that the archangel had found Father McConnaughey and given him the message about the Winchesters personally. The success of the Grigori in their endeavours seemed unlikely without some kind of help. They'd thought it had been help from Crowley, but now – now it looked as if Raphael had been cultivating them, and someone else was aiding them as well. The raising of the dead was not resurrection, for they had no souls, but purely reanimation, and was a form of black magic that had not been seen or practised reliably for almost the length of their time on this plane. The Haitians so-called zombies were a different matter altogether. As were the living dead, the creatures of Nintu. Not one of the chapters of the order had in their possession a spell or incantation or oblation or ritual to successfully reanimate a corpse – and the documents painfully retrieved from the Vatican hadn't either.

"You wanna say it, or do I have to?" Bobby said in a low voice as Dean lifted his head and pushed the papers in front of him aside.

The third trial was as vague as the second one had been. Get into Hell, kill an archdemon and the gates will close. Nothing about getting out again but maybe that was the point. Dean rubbed a hand over his jaw, the prick of the three days' worth of stubble against his fingers reminding him that he hadn't had time for a shower or sleep since he'd driven back from Maine.

The vision.

That was something else.

His gaze shifted up the table to meet the eyes of the Jesuit priest who sat silently to one side of Jerome. "Anyone keeping track of Chuck's score on these? The whole ones and the bits and pieces?"

"Yes, we have been correlating the results," Father Emilio said carefully. "The visions have been correct ninety percent of the time."

"And the ten that doesn't make it?"

"Either you or your brother has changed something, something substantial and the result changes."

Dean dropped his gaze to the table, letting out a long breath. "Then I'll have to change it this time," he said to no one in particular. He pushed the chair back and got up, gesturing vaguely to the door. "Sam still over at the keep?"

Bobby nodded, mouth opening.

"I gotta see him, get some sleep," Dean cut him off before he could get a word out. "I'll be by tomorrow sometime," he added as he turned away and headed for the stairs.

Rufus glanced at Bobby and shrugged. They both knew that casual tone, the one that said he'd made up his mind and no one would change it now.

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

Sam opened his eyes as he heard the door open, brow creasing as he looked at his brother. Scabbed-over cuts striped one side of Dean's face, underlain with a fading rainbow of dark colours.

"What the hell happened to you?"

Dean's mouth quirked humourlessly to one side as he walked to the bed and dragged a chair over to sit in. "Not much. Werewolves, goddesses … same old."

"You look worse than I do."

"No one looks worse than you do," Dean contradicted him cheerfully, the lightness in his voice not reflected in his eyes. "I've seen month-old bodies that looked better than you do, Sammy."

"It's getting better," Sam said defensively and Dean watched his gaze cut away. He nodded, letting it go.

"Good." He leaned back in the chair, looking at his brother. "What'd the doc say?"

Sam shrugged slightly, careful not to set off another coughing attack. He wasn't sure if Dean'd heard the one that had shaken through him a few minutes earlier.

"He doesn't know what's happening," he told him. "They've done a million tests and it all comes up the same big fat zero."

"You strong enough to do the third trial?"

For a moment, Sam didn't respond, staring down at the smooth white sheet that covered him. "Doesn't matter," he said finally. "This will kill me if I don't continue."

"You read Chuck's latest bird's eye into the future?"

"Yeah."

The silence in the warm room stretched out a little, then a bit further, both men thinking of what the prophet had seen, neither willing to talk about it.

"Father Emilio seems to think that I can change it, do something that'll change it just enough so that rest will veer off on a tangent," Dean offered a few minutes later. The still warmth of the room was lulling his brain, and he needed to keep moving, at least until he could crash. He stood up and looked around the large square room restlessly.

Sam watched him, seeing his discomfort and beneath that, more subtly, that his brother had already made a decision about what he was going to do. The mention of the Jesuit priest made him wonder if Father Emilio had been right about Dean. He didn't know what to think about that, it meant that some of his memories weren't accurate, some of the things he'd thought, had done, had been for the wrong reasons. Again. He pushed the thoughts aside and watched Dean stretch, the casual feline grace almost but not quite hiding the tension.

"We couldn't buck the last vision," he said matter-of-factly. "In fact, it went down exactly the way Chuck saw it."

"We didn't have a full chapter, or section, or whatever the hell you want to call it, then."

"I don't think that matters much." He dragged in a breath cautiously. "What are you going to do?"

Dean turned to face him, and Sam's heart sank as he saw the green eyes lit up. Every single time his brother looked like that, all hyped and glowing from the inside out with some idea, it meant he was going down to the wire.

"Not sure yet," Dean said, catching a glimpse of Sam's doubt and trying to wind down the volume on the charge of prickling energy that was fizzing through him. "I got a few ideas. I want to go see Boze first, check out some things with him."

_Lie number one_, Sam thought, his eyes narrowing slightly. Whatever Dean wanted to talk to Boze about, he didn't need to go up there again after just coming back.

"You get some strength back, okay?"

"Sure, yeah," Sam agreed automatically, and Dean walked to the door.

"Dean?"

His brother stopped and turned around, one brow lifted.

"It might be that a sacrifice is necessary to the closing of the gates, you know?"

The energy vanished, or darkened somehow, Sam thought, looking at his eyes.

"Then you gotta pull the plug, Sam," Dean said tightly.

"I can't. And you know that." He shifted against the pillows tucked up behind him. "It's okay, you know. I think I'm starting to understand this – all of it."

"What the fuck does that mean, Sam?" Dean strode back to the bed, face thunderous and the lit-up green eyes almost black. "You think this was pre-destined? That you won't find what you're looking for without it?"

"I feel okay about it, that's all." Sam shrugged, unwilling to talk about what Father Emilio had said to him yet.

"I don't!"

"I can't help that."

"No." The energy ran out as quickly as it had gathered. "No, you can't. So don't throw it all in without giving me a chance to do something, alright? A chance to change something."

"I just don't see the point of both of us going down at the same time," Sam said, risking a look at Dean's face.

Dean looked down at the floor. Somewhat ironically, he thought, he felt the same way. The difference was, if he could change something, something that would have an impact on what Sam did or what happened, his brother might be able to survive to have a life. He didn't think he could explain that to Sam. Explain how it could work for one of them, at least.

"I don't either," he said slowly. "Just – gimme some time, okay? Before you put your head on the chopping block? Just some time."

Sam's face screwed up as he tried to work out what his brother had in mind, what he was going to do.

"I will – if you promise me you won't do something stupid."

The fleeting smile that crossed Dean's face wasn't reassuring. "Yeah, I can promise that."

* * *

The apartment was dark but warm, the stone and concrete walls and floor radiating the day's heat back into the rooms. He left the lights off, moving around with an easy familiarity.

A single beam of moonlight lit the bathroom and he stripped off, stepping under the cold water without waiting for it to heat up. The water warmed gradually and the droplets beat down and in the insular world within the rushing flow, he felt himself get clearer.

They thought he was suicidal but he wasn't. There were just some things he could do and other things he couldn't and all he was doing was prioritising. He couldn't take his brother's place. He couldn't even go with him. But he could make a big noise elsewhere. That was something he could do.

Boze had promised everyone he could spare. Tim and Ty had offered the same. Between the northern camps, there would be about fourteen hundred, he thought. Franklin had already volunteered and most of his soldier-boys had signed themselves up. He didn't think he'd get more than that from here. It couldn't be a front assault, but it was going to have to be. He wanted everyone looking at him and no one paying attention to what his little brother was doing.

His palms flat against the smooth, cool tiles, Dean leaned against the wall, head bowed under the spray. It wasn't getting easier. Not at all. He tipped his face into the water, sluicing the last of the soap from his skin and hair and turned off the taps, reaching for the towel, trying to keep his mind on what he had to do.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he looked absently around the room. It was bland, he thought tiredly. The very faint odour of the dirty clothes he'd shucked at the end of the bed was the only thing he could smell in here now. He looked at the nightstand, the bottle and glass that sat there, mutely accusing.

The bottle had come out again, after a long period where he hadn't wanted it, at least, hadn't wanted the smothering amnesia it could offer. It'd been a decision he hadn't questioned. It let him get to sleep, mostly.

In the night he would wake, listening, for the soft whisper of breath. It wasn't just clean sheets and a bed that fooled him into waking and listening for that now, it didn't matter where he slept or tried to sleep, he'd come to consciousness, listening, and when memory seeped in, along with the certain knowledge that he was not going to hear that, that he would never hear that again, it crucified him, each and every time.

It was getting harder. And the whiskey didn't really do much these days.

It hadn't been until someone had removed everything from the apartment that he'd realised what he'd been doing, just waiting, not admitting to anything, everything normal, everything fine here, look, there's her coat, the book she'd been reading, the scent of her on the sheets and towels and on her clothes in the closet and he thought he'd spent a lot of time using those subliminal clues to kid himself that it was a temporary thing, nothing permanent, gone up to see Renee, maybe or down to look at the cotton gins and mills in the south, back soon, anytime soon.

It was much harder now. And the only real antidote he had was doing something. Moving. Taking on whatever he could. He had to figure out a way to change what was going to happen. Chuck's words on the smooth white page rose into his thoughts and he felt himself tense … _Sam's body arched upward and backward, straining as if he were being pulled from every direction at once, light flickering under his skin, pulsing and zigzagging crazily, a cartoonish view of electrocution but there was nothing funny about it. He collapsed to the ground as the light died, and his eyes stared sightlessly, limbs sprawled in the careless contortions of death, only feet away from the charred bones of the archdemon_ …

Dragging in a deep breath, Dean pushed the memory of that passage aside, scrambling for something to replace it with, a plan, an idea … anything to block out the morbid finality of those words.

In the vision, Chuck had seen Sam go through the open gate and into Hell, had seen him confront the archdemon and battle with him. It hadn't been the fight that had killed his brother. It had been contract that was inside of him. Burning through the last of the demon blood? Or through Sam's soul? Chuck didn't know. He didn't know if anything he could do would change that outcome.

Looking around the room again, he wondered if it was something Sam would do – or could do. Some act that would make the final sacrifice unnecessary. He could ask the priests about it.

He stretched out on the bed, staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, unaware that he was still listening.

* * *

_**July 10, 2013. West Keep, Kansas**_

He didn't want to die. For the first time in a long time, maybe even since the moment his brother had dragged him out of the apartment in Palo Alto, he wanted to live. Felt like he had something to live for. _God's sense of humour_, Bobby said on numerous occasions. _Don't know what you've got till it's gone_.

He didn't want to die but there wasn't going to be a choice about that and even if there had been some way to walk away from what he'd started, he couldn't this time. Running was what he'd done in the past. He wasn't going to do it again.

He sat up in the bed, pushing the covers to one side. The dizziness was a permanent condition now, lack of blood pressure, he thought tiredly. He felt weak all the time as well. He'd been sleeping again, but it hadn't helped. His dreams had been vivid and almost three-dimensional, not nightmares, not precisely, they'd been memories more often than not.

They'd started out with the memories of a few years back, driving with his brother, hustling pool, lying back on the hood of the car, staring at the night sky in some godforsaken stretch of nameless desert. Then he'd dreamed of Jess, their apartment, talking to her, listening to her, watching her. And then they'd gone further back. Motels. His brother. His father.

He didn't know what it meant, the dreams of his life, moving backward through time. Most hadn't been of the frightening or dangerous moments. They'd been the ordinary times, the times in between. And when he woke from them, he felt a sad kind of peace, a gentle melancholy that he'd forgotten about all those times. All those good times.

His feet touched the floor and he stood slowly, waiting for the unsteadiness to pass, leaning back against the edge of the bed. He was going to miss the order, he thought, trying to block out the churning nausea that was filling his throat. Miss the nights of reading and tracking the answers through the countless volumes of lore and knowledge. Miss looking up and seeing Marla nearby, the warm golden light of the library's lamps gleaming on the shining dark curtain of her hair. Miss the arguments with Jerome and Jasper, the discussions with Marla and Oliver. The short sojourn he'd had with them had given him a glimpse of another life and it'd been a life he'd wanted, a life he could see himself embracing.

The trembling in his legs had stopped, the dizziness had backed off and he felt his stomach settle down, swallowing against the taste at the back of his throat, forcing it down. The archangel's sword was bundled in silk and an outer leather wrapping, sitting on the low chest of drawers to one side of the room. He walked to it slowly and looked down at the shape.

_Going into Hell, alone_. He'd be protected by the talismans, as he had been before. The demons probably wouldn't see him. The archdemons would, he knew. There wasn't anything on the tablet about protecting him from the draining power of the fallen angels. He picked up the sword, feeling the weight in the muscles of forearm and bicep and shoulder. A few weeks ago, he wouldn't have noticed that weight. A few weeks ago, he'd've been able to move fast. He thought briefly of Cerberus, jumping onto the guardian's back and hacking off the head.

The third trial was killing an archdemon. Asmodeus had almost caught him. And Baal was still in there, somewhere. He had no idea of what he was going to do if they were together.

_Worry about it when it happens_, he told himself sharply, putting the sword down and picking up his jeans. He needed to get going, needed to call Cas.

* * *

Jimmy spun around on the stairs, staring at the man who stood two steps down, whose features were a little like his own, just enough familiarity that he knew who it was.

"Go away," he said sharply, turning away and starting to climb the stairs again.

"Jimmy, I need your help," Castiel said bluntly, lifting his hand. The man was held immobile in mid-stride.

"You promised to take care of my family, Castiel," Jimmy said, his voice low and angry. "You _promised_ that no harm would come to them."

"I know," the angel said, lowering his hand. "They are alive, Jimmy. Alive and safe, for the moment."

Novak looked back over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed in disbelief. "Where? What do you mean – for the moment?"

"You know what's happening here," Cas told him as Jimmy turned to face him. "I need you."

"I don't give a tiny rat's ass what you need, Castiel," he said thinly. "What about what I need? What about Claire and Amelia?"

"I told you, they're safe," the angel said. "But I can't guarantee that they will remain safe unless I can help the Winchesters close the gates, and defeat the Grigori. If either Hell or the fallen gain victory here, no one will be safe."

"You know, I listened to you before and my wife was possessed by a demon," Jimmy said, looking down at him, his face taut with the memory. "I want some real proof that you're telling the truth this time."

"Give me your consent and I will show you."

"Now?"

Cas nodded, watching him. For a moment, Jimmy looked back at him, uncertain about believing him. He was nothing as the angel's vessel, locked away in his mind, not living, not dying, not anything. But if he could see them again, just see them and know that they were alright … he closed his eyes.

"You have my consent."

Cas dissolved and Jimmy's body lit up, the light filling him and transforming him, pushing his awareness of his body aside, taking over his mind, shutting him away.

The angel looked down as the light faded, his expression smooth and blank. The air popped as it rushed to fill the space the man had occupied.

* * *

_**Marsh Harbor, Bahamas**_

Cas stood on the sandy dune, overlooking the long white beach, the warm breeze laden with salt ruffling his hair as he relinquished partial control over the soul whose vessel he shared.

At the end of the beach, an old house stood, built of coral and stone and cement, with deep verandas and lush greenery surrounding it. Jimmy looked at the two figures walking slowly along the sand, their long blonde hair lifted by the light wind, their gazes on the shore. His wife and daughter looked healthy, he thought, looked tan and fit and – and – safe.

Claire lifted her head and gestured to the pier that jutted out into the shallow, jade-green water and Jimmy saw Amelia nod, following her daughter more slowly as Claire raced ahead.

_Can they see us?_

_No._

_Will you bring me here, to see them, from time to time?_

He felt the angel's deep sigh and waited.

_Yes, if that is what you want._

Watching Claire pull up the simple crab-pots and fish traps that had been set out from along pier's edge, Jimmy nodded to himself. _Yes. That's what I want_.

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

Sam glanced up the corridor and stepped out of the room, the sword thrust through his belt and bouncing lightly against his leg as he walked toward the stairs. Dean couldn't help him this time, and it would be better if he could get out of here before his brother was aware of his plan to leave.

"Cas? Cas, can you hear me?"

The sound of wings behind him was a bare flutter, the air shifting as he turned to see Jimmy standing there.

"He consented?" Sam asked, surprised.

Cas inclined his head slightly. "What do you want, Sam?"

"I need a gate."

Cas' eyes widened fractionally. "Where's Dean?"

"He's got other things to do," Sam said, taking a step toward the angel. "And I have to do this alone."

"Not entirely alone," Castiel told him, reaching out to grip his shoulder.

The air sighed in the hall, a swirl of dust motes sparkling faintly as they were lit up by the sunshine coming through the window at the far end.

* * *

_**Strawberry Peak, Utah**_

The cavern was deeper than it was high or wide, and the women crouched together at its end, close by the small tunnel that led further into the mountain. The air was cold and damp and they shivered in the shapeless shifts they wore, pressed against one another for warmth.

Jane looked down at the woman next to her. She'd hardly spoken, since they'd left the basement, her long hair hanging over her face most of the time. In the fitful, flickering light of the jerry-rigged torch, a handful of material wrapped around an old piece of timber hoarding, found as they'd made their through what might've once been a mine, Jane saw the pock-marks over the woman's arms, and lifting the torch, up along her neck. The skin there was mottled with bruising, older, greys and yellows and fading green.

"What happened to you?" she asked, and the woman lifted her head, seeing the direction of her gaze and following it.

"I don't know," she said quietly.

"Those aren't from the blood-drawing," Jane said, peering closer at the rows of needle punctures. "They're everywhere."

The woman drew away a little as she nodded. "I don't know," she said again.

"You don't remember?"

"I don't remember anything."

Jane opened her mouth to question her further and closed it abruptly as she heard the scrape, far down the tunnel they'd come up from last night. She got to her feet fast, gesturing sharply with the torch to the black hole on the other side of the cavern. The woman rose, pulling the girl next to her up as well and the others looked around, hearing another noise and following Jane down into the darkness of the tunnel mouth.

It was a maze of tunnels and caves, some man-made, exploratory mines, old mines that had been worked out, some were naturally formed caves and passages and drop shafts. The air moved slightly against her face and the flame of the torch bent. She turned to the movement and followed it along another narrow slit, shielding the light with her body as much as possible.

Behind them, there was a cough and the sound of footsteps.

"Hey, think they've been through here!"

The shout, still far off but a lot closer than any of the other searcher's noises had been, pushed them all into walking faster, following the twisting passage, glancing fearfully over their shoulders.

"We might have to get rid of that light." The woman whispered to Jane as she hurried beside her.

"We do, and we'll die in here," Jane whispered back, curving her arms and shoulders around the torch more tightly. "We can't lose it."

"If they see us, we'll die anyway."

Jane flicked a glance at her profile. She was thin, thinner than any of them, her belly huge and swollen, drum-tight in front of her. In the inconstant light, she saw that her jaw was clenched hard.

* * *

_**July 11, 2013. West Keep, Kansas**_

Dean stood in the doorway, eyes narrowed as he scanned the empty room. Clothes, sword, brother … all gone. _Goddammit, Sammy_, he thought furiously, turning away and striding down the hall, _couldn't have given me a few more days?_

He knew the answer to that question. Sam didn't think he had that many more days. It meant he'd have to think of something else, because there was no way Boze would be ready yet. He turned left into the main hall and headed for the doors, ignoring the people he passed, attention focussed inward.

He was halfway across the bailey when the memory hit him, his father's voice a deep, dark burr in the mostly dark room. Sam had been ill and he'd been sleeping in the main room, a bed made up on the long over-stuffed sofa. His father had been telling him about ancient battles, Troy, and Athens and … Thermopylae. Three hundred men against the army of Persia, an army of more than ten thousand. John Winchester had failed his children in many areas, but story-telling hadn't been one of them.

"_Xerxes and his army had to come through the pass, and there was just the one road they could travel on. Leonidas chose his ground carefully, the narrowest section, between high mountains and the sea and he ranged his archers on the high ground on both sides, and his soldiers along the mouth, and when the army attacked, the piles of their dead became a barrier itself, that they had to climb over or drag aside to get through to the soldiers fighting them," that dark voice had said softly next to him. He remembered closing his eyes, imagining the Persians with their elephants and their wagons, unable to go forward or back, held off by the fierce warriors of Sparta._

Franklin looked up as Dean barrelled into workshop. "Where's the fire?"

"I need a truck, Stingers, mines, C4, detonators, a Stig, half a dozen M60s and as much ammo as the truck'll carry," the hunter said tersely, looking around the packed walls of the long room. "And I need it now."

"Boze said he'd be –"

"I know," Dean cut him off. "Sam's gone. I'm out of time."

Franklin put down the tools he was holding and nodded once, going to the intercom that sat to one side of the long bench. "Willis, get everyone. We're leaving."

"No," Dean snapped, looking at him. "I can do this alone."

Franklin's face reddened with anger. "The fuck you will, son," he growled, face screwing up as he straightened up and looked pugnaciously at the younger man. "I know what you're thinking, but all those men – they died holding that pass."

"My point," Dean said turning away from him. "It'll be an ambush, not a holding front. And I'll have a better chance of surviving without anyone else to worry about."

"Too bad," Franklin grunted, pulling off the leather apron he wore and tossing it onto the bench. "You've got company whether you want it or not."

Dean looked back at him as he walked to the door of the workshop. He could hear the rumble of engines now, deep-noted diesels, their low thunder bouncing off the hard stone and concrete walls of the keep.

"Franklin, I need you and everyone else here, to protect these people," he tried again, shoving down a growing push of anger.

Franklin ignored him, going to the phone in his office. "Bobby? Get word to Boze, we're leaving now. Yeah. No. As many as he can find, and as fast as he can get there," he said shortly into the handset, turning to glance over at Dean. "Yeah, that's about it. Not Custer. Thermopylae." He hung up with a soft snort.

"We'll be ready in twenty minutes," he told Dean. "Bobby, Jackson and Riley'll hold the fort here."

Looking at him, Dean felt his anger drain away. "I gotta move fast."

"We'll keep up, don't you worry," Franklin said sourly. "Willis' got a truck loaded, we've been thinking about what we might need for a few days now. Short, red-haired kid. You can't miss him."

Dean swung away, heading for the door. Franklin called out and he stopped by the frame.

"Not a last stand," he said, his gravelly voice reaching across the room. "We just have to hold them till the rest can get to the plain. Right?"

The hunter's mouth lifted on one side slightly. "Whatever we have to, Franklin. No guarantees."

He walked through the door and left the ex-soldier glowering after him. They'd need plenty of explosive, he thought to himself as he turned back to the phone to let Rufus know of the change in plans. He'd drag the crazy sonofabitch out of there himself if he had to, but they'd make it hard work for anyone to follow them, and they only needed a few days.

* * *

Rufus slammed the phone down and spun around, half-running to the hall and snatching up his gear bag. He had twenty minutes to find the others and get their gear sorted out. He should've known the dumbass would want to take the fight out of here, the losses of the last engagement hadn't been bad but Dean'd felt every single one.

Seeing Billy and Lee walking down the long hall that led to the kitchens, he hailed them and told them to get everyone together, ready to go in fifteen minutes. The young hunters split up and bolted, Billy going to find Herb and Win and Elias, Lee heading in the other direction to round up the rest of the trainees, Kelly, Nate and Peter. Neither young man appeared to be too worried about what might turn out to be a suicide mission, Rufus thought, following the echoes of Lee's rapidly receding footsteps to the stairs. They had plenty of ordnance, plenty of ammunition. But the odds were bad.

Jackson met him on the keep steps, his face hard and stony. "What's the story?"

"Sam's gone, we're heading out," Rufus told him, swinging the heavy gun bag over his shoulder. "We'll try and get up to the high pass and hold them there until Boze and Tim can get their people over from Michigan."

"You need more people," the farmer said, watching the trucks roll through the bailey.

"No argument, but what we got is what we got." He flicked a glance back at the keep, towering up grey and solid behind them. "You don't hear from us, you get everyone into the walls and you button this place up tight and you prepare for an attack."

Jackson nodded. "We'll be ready."

"You better be," Rufus warned him. "Won't be no cavalry left, Jackson. Just you and the folks here. So keep 'em safe."

He turned away, walking down the wide steps and waving an arm as Jack pulled up beside him, the canvas-covered truck low on its axles. Climbing up into the cab, Rufus lifted a hand and the truck pulled away, belching black smoke as it crawled after the others through the narrow tunnel.

"What's going on?" Lachlan Miller stopped beside Jackson, glancing at him and back at the trucks.

"Grigori army has started to move and Dean's going to stop them," the leader replied sharply.

"Doesn't look like many are going?"

"No," Jackson said caustically. "And they'll probably all die tryin' to save our hides."

The carpenter said nothing, watching the trucks edge their way out of the courtyards and through the gates. He turned away and walked back across the bailey.

* * *

_**Cache Valley, Utah**_

The landing was harder than before, and Sam staggered slightly to one side, his hand snapping out to grip the priest's shoulder as Father McConnaughey gasped and stumbled forward. Castiel steadied them both.

"Where are we?"

"This is the Cache Valley, in Utah," Cas said, looking around warily.

"Utah?" Father McConnaughey said, his gaze flicking from side to side. "Why Utah?"

"In 1863, there was a massacre here," the angel said, gesturing around them. "It opened a gate. The gate is still here."

"But the Grigori base –"

"It is a hundred miles north of here," Cas cut him off. "We do not need to worry about that right now." He looked at Sam. "Do you have the ingredients for the spell?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, takes about an hour to open the gate."

"I cannot go with you."

"I know," Sam said, kneeling to unzip the bag he carried and unload the bowl and herbs and crushed powders he needed to force the gate open. He and Marla had separated all the available information on the different ways to open the gates, both the gates to this plane and the doorways from the borderlands. He pushed aside the anger he still felt at not knowing any of them back when he needed the knowledge the most and set everything out carefully, narrowing his concentration to what he was going to have to do.

"Sam."

He looked up at the angel, seeing his indecision, the uncertainty in the dark blue eyes.

"Cas, if you can get any help from Michael, we could use it."

"I'll try."

The sound of beating wings filled the open valley, then vanished. Father McConnaughey looked down at the preparations.

"Can I help?"

"Not right now," Sam said, his gaze checking over what he'd brought. "I think I have to finish the third trial before I – before we can go any further."

He looked back at the priest, sighing inwardly as he saw the concern in his face. "If I don't come back, pray to Cas," he said firmly. "He'll get you back to the keep."

Father McConnaughey nodded, his gaze dropping to the talismans around the younger man's neck. He reached up and lifted a cross from his own, drawing it from beneath the black coat he wore and pulling the chain over his head. Sam frowned as he handed the cross to him.

"Not just a symbol of faith," Father McConnaughey said, gesturing to it as Sam lifted the pendant to examine it. "Also of protection and, I believe, a source of strength, if you can access it."

"Do you know how?"

Father McConnaughey smiled, somewhat wryly. "I held it while I prayed for help," he said frankly. "And help came, in one way or another."

"Never say no to help," Sam said, drawing the chain over his head and settling the cross under his shirt.

"A wise decision."

* * *

_**July 12, 2013. Strawberry Peak, Utah**_

Jesse glanced around the room, searching the shadows that lingered in the corners for any possible watcher. It was empty, the thin light that crept in through the cracks between the thick curtains revealing a long, mostly bare room, with floor-to-ceiling windows running along one wall, incompletely covered in heavy brocade, and a grand piano with at least an inch of dust sitting over its broad, flat surface. And a frame, hung on the wall opposite the piano and loosely draped with a black, silk cloth.

He hurried across the dull parquetry floor to the hidden mirror. Julian and the Russian had completed the spell to restore the pieces two days ago. One day ago, in the middle of the night, the mirror had spoken to him.

"Hubertus?"

He was afraid. Afraid of the mirror, of the men who ran this place and had repaired it, afraid the armies of the dead he'd brought here, and the army of the living with their flat, black demon eyes. None of them could hurt him, he knew. None of them could touch him. But he was afraid of what they would do to everything else.

_Jesse._

"I'm here," the boy whispered, sinking down to the floor against the wall, his eyes closing.

_I was wrong._

Jesse frowned. "About what?"

_About everything_, the soul of the cambion murmured and he wasn't sure he was hearing that soft sighing breath with his ears or in his mind, the way he'd _heardseenfelt_ Sabrine's mental touch.

"I don't understand."

_Whatever else we are, Jesse, we're human. I thought we were more than that, gods, demi-gods … but we're not. Human. Made to need each other._

Jesse still didn't understand. He twisted around, looking up at the bottom of the frame. "What's wrong?"

_I'm lonely_. The _thoughtwordsidea_ held a feeling of amusement, edging the melancholy. _I've lived alone my entire life but this is the first time I've ever been lonely._

"I'm still here."

_Yes, you are_. The feeling that imbued that was warm with regard, with care. _Jesse, you have to find a way to get me out of here_.

"The angels," Jesse said softly. "They're looking for the spell to free you."

_They will never find it. _The thought was lit with certainty._ It is the antithesis of what they are, what they understand. The order, the order will have it._

"I can't see them any more," Jesse admitted. "They took the tablet and the prophet."

… _At least they are protected then._

Jesse felt the deep sigh and sorrow that leaked from the mirror above him.

_Jesse, what are they doing, the angels?_

"They've brought the dead out of their graves," the boy said slowly, the icy shiver running up his spine again. "They're possessed by demons. They captured one of the other angels, and put a spell on him. He opened the gate and let the demons come out."

The mirror remained silent and Jesse swallowed a little nervously. "The vampire escaped and took the people he changed. He took some of the women as well."

The feeling of amusement came from the mirror, a breathless chuckle against his mind.

"Is that funny?"

_Oh yes, that's very funny._

"Why?"

_You'll understand, one day, Jesse. What else?_

"They are going to make the demons attack the people, in Kansas."

_Are they now?_

Jesse felt the sudden interest from the cambion, a surge in energy. "Is that good?"

_It might work for us. It might … free us._

"How?"

_What are your orders? Yours and the others?_

"We have to go with them, across the mountains. To clear the roads, to make sure they can get through."

_Yes. Will Julian take the mirror?_

"I don't know, he hasn't said so."

…

"What?"

…

"Hubertus?"

_Either way. Either way it will come to our advantage_. There was a quiet certainty, leeching out from the thought and filling him, soothing him.

_Before you leave, come then and tell me what is to happen. I think I can still call out, even from in here. All of us together. Yes, come here and tell me when you are about to leave, Jesse._

"Alright."

_Jesse …_

"Mmm?"

_Keep yourself safe. Flee if you must._

"Will I see you again?"

_Yes. I am certain of that._

"I've gotta go."

_Remember what I said, Jesse. Keep safe._

"I will."

He got to his feet and walked to the door, glancing back over his shoulder at the darkly shrouded frame as he left the room. It was creepy. But it was good as well. Good to hear his friend. Good to know he wasn't dead. He kept hoping that he would find Alison again too. He missed her terribly.

He could hear the stamping of thousands of feet, even from deep within the house. They would be leaving soon. Marius said that there were more than ten thousand in the army they'd raised. The line would be more than eight miles long, where the roads narrowed through the passes. He couldn't imagine that many, altogether with the trucks and tanks and wagons pulling the heavy artillery.

* * *

_**Camp Tawas, Lake Tawas, Michigan**_

Renee stopped in the hall and leaned against the wall, feeling the distinctive movement in her abdomen and resting one hand against the taut skin. Too early, she told herself firmly, hoping that the twins she was carrying weren't going to follow the tradition of their older siblings and come before they were due.

The feeling subsided and she straightened up, taking a deep breath. _Just another week_, she told them silently. _One more week and you can come out anytime you like, but give us another week_.

Boze looked up as she walked into his office, his eyes narrowing slightly as he took the pinched look around her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"Indigestion, I think," she said lightly, passing him a cup of coffee and easing herself slowly into the comfortable chair opposite the desk. "Are you ready?"

"Vince called in last night, got through on the SSB," he said, picking up the cup. "They're heading east and south, looking for the naval bases." He swallowed a mouthful of the black liquid and sighed. "We'll be heading out at dawn."

Renee nodded. Bobby's call had been expected, they had been gleaning from the army bases and National Guard training camps for the last three weeks, but the news that Dean had left, was going to try to hold the army in the mountains, had accelerated everything.

She'd wished he'd come here, after Alex had died, but she'd known that he wouldn't, couldn't share his grief with anyone else, even those he trusted. He'd been the first person she'd seen after the virus had decimated her small town, and he'd nearly run her over when she'd raced onto the road, knowing it was a risk, that he could've been one of the monsters that she'd seen wandering through the town, but too desperate then to care. She remembered the quiet wariness in his eyes as he'd looked at her and offered the water, Rufus standing behind and to one side of him, both of them with their fingers on the triggers of their guns.

She still couldn't believe that the population of the keeps in Kansas had turned against him, couldn't understand how it was they didn't know they'd all be dead if it weren't for him.

"How long do you think this is going to take?" she asked, knowing the question was a fool's question, needing to ask it anyway.

Boze smiled gently at her. "I don't know, babe. If we can get there fast enough, catch them as they're coming down, we might be able to flank them, get behind them. But if we're can't, and they get down to the plain before us …" he trailed off uncomfortably. More than ten battalions, Chuck had written. No idea how much more, but the Qaddiysh that had been taken had supposedly been able to command over a hundred thousand demons, and the cemetery of Arlington held over three hundred thousand graves, the math was huge, frightening. He didn't want to think about it until he was there, and could see what few advantages the terrain and the situation might give them. He certainly couldn't offer a hope to the woman opposite him, no matter how much he wanted to.

Renee watched the expressions cross his face, expressions that she knew he thought he was hiding from her. He was disarmingly oblivious to the expressiveness that made him transparent to anyone watching him. She no longer allowed him to play poker for anything other than matchsticks because he'd lost so much of their personal stocks of booze playing for bourbon.

He looked up at her. "Dean's sneaky, you know that," he offered. "He'll figure out some way of getting on top of them."

"I know he will," she said, with more conviction that she felt. "He's bucked the odds for a long time now."

She hoped his luck would hold. Hoped all of their luck would hold. She had the feeling that it might not, though. They'd probably used up most of what they deserved in the attack on Atlanta.

* * *

_**Cache Valley, Utah**_

Sam heard the gate grinding open in the hillside and kept his eyes closed, murmuring the spell's incantation over and over until the last reverberations of the rock ceased and the silence of the valley was filled with the whispering screams from the opening.

Father McConnaughey picked up the small satchel at his feet, standing as Sam did. Glancing at him, Sam shook his head.

"You can't go in there, Father," he told the priest. "You have to stay, keep the fire going, keep the gate open."

"What if you need help?"

"If I do, I'm screwed," Sam said, forcing his voice to a cheeriness he was far from feeling. "The trials have to be done alone. The contract is between me and – and God – alone."

"Sam –"

"No ifs, no buts, padre," Sam said, channelling the bravado of his older brother. "I'll see you in a few."

He turned and stepped through the gap, disappearing completely as he entered the hillside. Father McConnaughey looked down at the small fire, at the tendrils of lavender-coloured smoke that rose from the silver bowl sitting on the hot coals to one side of it. The fire had to be kept going, he told himself, looking around for wood. He was going to have trust in God for this one.

* * *

_**Heaven**_

The flap of the coat was reassuring against his legs, Castiel realised as he strode down the long chamber toward the raised dais. Novak's coat had been long gone, but he'd remembered every detail and the new one was identical.

"Michael."

The archangel was sitting at one side of the dais, staring at the fluted column of crystal a few feet away. He turned his head slowly to look at the seraphim.

"The Grigori have raised their army. They are heading for Kansas."

Michael nodded tiredly. "Sariel told me that Kokabiel and Gadriel left with Camael. Neither have been heard from since. And Belial walks the earthly plane."

Cas stared at him, a slight frown drawing his brows together as he heard the level of disinterest in Michael's voice. "You must call the Host."

"To bring down the pillars of Heaven, Castiel? To destroy everything we've spent millennia protecting?"

"Camael will destroy it all anyway, if you don't act," Cas snapped. "Starting with allowing Belial to corrupt the Earth and rid himself of humanity, and finishing by purging Heaven!"

"And what would you have me do?" Michael said, anger displacing the despair in his voice. "If I leave to fight your friends' battles down here, Camael will have his victory here! He is the Scribe, Cas, he knows the secrets of our Father!"

"Not all of them," Cas countered. "If he knew the instructions on the tablets, he would have acted already, not made the alliances with the Tainted Ones, nor with archdemons."

Michael turned away and Cas felt frustration burst in his chest. "Give me a battalion at least, so we don't lose the few left of our Father's creations!"

"I need every angel here, Castiel."

"You have given up already!"

"No," Michael said, getting to his feet. "I haven't given up yet. But I cannot help you. The humans will have to fight their own battles, I will not let the pillars fall and I will not let Camael's rebellion succeed."

The great chamber sighed with the flutter of unseen wings as the archangel vanished and Cas was left standing alone, staring at the smooth, white marble floor.

* * *

_**July 13, 2013. West Keep, Kansas**_

"What the hell are you doing?" Sandy stared at Miller as he loaded the small truck with guns and ammunition from the armoury.

"What I should have had the guts to do two days ago," Miller grunted, heaving the last box into the back and slamming the tail-gate shut. "My duty."

"What?"

Miller finished tying off the lacing to the truck's canvas cover and turned around. "I listened to Tomlinson and Macey, listened to that little skank before she left. Left my brain in my other pants, and believed all that crap." He walked around to the cab. "I was in Atlanta, when they came in. Sitting on a bus that was a part of a long line of buses, taking us to get our throats cut. Winchester was the one who faced down the devil and killed him. Not anyone here. Jackson's a good man and a good leader and maybe if we ever get some peace around here, he'll be the one to keep things running right. But Winchester is the real leader of this place, and he and Franklin and their boys are driving to a fight where they're outnumbered at least a hundred to one, if not more, according to Jackson. So I ain't gonna sit on my ass and wait to see how that turns out. The old world is dead. This one needs more than politics to keep it going."

He opened the door with a wrench and swung up into the cab, slamming the door behind him and leaning out the open window. "You can tell that to Macey when you see him."

The engine started with a deep rumble and a blat of exhaust and Sandy stepped back as the carpenter pulled the vehicle around in a tight circle and headed for the tunnel.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" he yelled out after him.

"Colorado!" The shout came back just as the truck rolled into the shadow.

* * *

Bobby stuck his head into the office and Jackson looked up. "Better come take a look at this," he said, disappearing again.

Jackson got up and walked around the desk and out of the room, following the hunter down the hall.

"Gonna give me a clue?"

"Easier if you see it for yerself."

They walked to the stairs and started to climb, both panting by the time they reached the roof. Leading him over to the lower section of the crenellated wall, Bobby gestured to the north. Jackson's brows lifted as he saw the movement of the vehicles, lines here and there, solitary cars moving out and accelerating to join the next.

"What the hell?"

"You tell me."

"Where are they going?" Jackson looked across to the roads visible from this height, from the other keeps. There were more trucks and cars leaving from those as well. "Are they bailing?"

"Nope." Bobby watched a line of troop carriers leaving Lightning Oak. "Going to Colorado."

Jackson's head snapped around to look him. "For Dean?"

"Seems like."

"How? Why?" the farmer sputtered. "I thought –"

Bobby's mouth lifted in a dry smile. "Mitch called me. Said that he'd been seeing people leaving all morning. I went and talked to one of them, fella by the name of Ross," he said. "Told me he'd thought it over. Was his family at risk. He couldn't get that thought out of his head. He was loading up from Franklin's stash and going out there. Thought the others felt the same way."

"Son of a bitch," Jackson said softly. "Will they make it in time?"

"Should be there around the same time as Boze," Bobby said. "I don't know if that's gonna help with what Dean's doing, but if they get out of the pass, it'll be somethin'."

"How many, do you think?"

"So far, over a thousand," Bobby said. "I don't know for sure."

* * *

_**Hell**_

Sam looked around the dark rock tunnel. He'd left the marker at the door and had walked down the tunnel for perhaps five minutes when he realised he was passing the same bend again.

_In your bones, you had to visualise what you were looking for._

His face screwed up as he realised that plan was going to obviate any hope of surprise for the attack. And it would put him right in the demon's field. He'd have seconds, at most, to do this.

_The third trial is the final purification of the contract_. The gates still had to be closed after it. If he died first, what happened then? Chuck said that he hadn't found anything on the tablet to cover that eventuality but he'd admitted that there was still a lot information on the stone that he hadn't seen.

_You must have faith_. Father Emilio's voice breathed in his mind and he saw the Jesuit's face, watching him, the warm, dark brown eyes almost imploring. Faith.

Sam felt a shudder ripple through him. Faith in a God who'd let his sons run riot over the earth, let them manipulate humanity and then attempt to exterminate them? Faith in himself? After every erroneous decision, every self-centred choice to take the easier way and the hell with the final result?

He pulled in a deep breath, feeling the bubble and creak in his lungs which still felt half-full, and closed his eyes. _The smell, acrid-sharp and burned metal. The thin, cold wind that came from nowhere, carrying that scent along with it. The impenetrable blackness of the hood, filled with something so evil light refused to enter and illuminate what hid inside. A hand, reaching for him, closing around his arm, the black bones held together with shreds of mottled tendon_.

Hell obliged and the accursed plane swung itself around him, squeezing him tightly and dropping him.

He opened his eyes, staring around. He was still on the first level. But the corridor he'd come through was gone. Broken rock and oily pools surrounded him, the stench of brimstone filled his nose and mouth, and the wind moaned and whispered through the acid-pitted stone of the walls towering above him, their fanged outline dark against turgid thundery storm clouds.

The sword gripped tightly in his hand, Sam swung around as he felt the pull at his soul. _Asmodeus ruled the First Level_. And the archdemon stood several yards from him, black shroud shivering in the eddies caused by the rising heat and the atmospheric charge lighting the cloud cover above.

It moved faster than he could register and the draining sensation filled him abruptly, the demon's hands lifting for him. Against his mind, Sam felt rather than heard laughter, and for an endless time his thoughts and feelings were drowned in a black wave of depravity, of degradation and humiliation, a razor-bright agony shrieking through his body and a nauseating lick and satiation churning in his stomach, spreading through his organs. The taste of pain and the smell of despair, images that swamped his senses.

_Vessel of the Lightbringer. Drunk with the blood of the innocent. Breaker of seals. Destroyer. Damned._

The voice that was not a voice prised its way into his mind and Sam heaved involuntarily, the splat of blood and bile landing at the demon's feet. The act of rejection sponged clean the taint of the demon's touch in his head and he lifted the sword tip, setting his teeth together tightly and stepping forward.

* * *

_**July 15, 2013. I-70, Colorado**_

Dean stopped the truck in the middle of the interstate, peering out through the windshield at the vertical rock that rose to either side of him. He got out, hearing the engines of the vehicles behind him idling, their low throb filling the narrow pass.

There were several roads across the mountains, leading down to Boulder and Golden. Franklin had sent scouts on ahead, and four of those roads had been destroyed already, earth movements or the ravages of the winter storms. It didn't matter. He was sure that the Grigori would come here, the only road that was more-or-less intact and wide enough to accommodate their army and its vehicles.

As they'd climbed slowly, the ex-soldier had left teams behind. There were multiple overpasses across the road and he'd agreed that blowing them as they moved back would be a strategically good idea. He wasn't sure that they would be moving back but it couldn't hurt to be ready.

_Three hundred men against ten thousand_. He thought they had a bit under three hundred, and an uneasy feeling they were going to be facing more than ten thousand, but the principles were the same. Bottlenecked in the narrow pass, the army would be a sitting target for the weapons they could put up on the high sides of the cut, and out-flanking them would be a tricky proposition for the enemy, limiting them to what they could carry while they climbed.

Of course, if they'd brought along the cambion – he cut off that thought. One set of impossibilities was enough to deal with at a time.

Franklin walked up to him. "This is the best we can hope for."

Dean nodded. "Let's get set up."

* * *

He could feel the vibration, through the bones of his elbows, resting against the rock, through the pads of his fingers, through his teeth, almost. Feet moving in unison, sympathetic vibrations transmitted from the concrete road to the bones of the mountain beneath. Not far now, a couple of miles at most.

In front of him, the Stig sat like an ugly toad, black and boxy and squat, the big-bore muzzle pointed down to where he could see the end of the road as it curved behind the walls of the defile. The box magazines were stacked beside him, and he ran an eye over it again. Against his ear, the comms piece was silent.

They were ready, as ready as they would ever be, he thought sourly. Twenty guns were on the top of the cut, covering a mile. The Semtex was embedded and Franklin held the detonators, two miles back down the interstate. There were no lines of soldiers down there, the field had to be kept clear for the snipers but they'd all be in it once the ammunition they'd lugged up with them was gone.

His thoughts skittered around the edges of where Sam was, what he was doing. He didn't want to distract himself with speculation. From his vantage point, looking to the east, he could see the line of black cloud that stretched from the north across the country to the south. Death's words brushed against the back of his mind and he forced those thoughts aside as well. If the archdemon brought up all his foul creations there was a box of toys that Chuck had translated from the tablet to deal with them. He hoped.

He turned his head back to the gun at the sound of distant shouting, edging closer to the stock, shifting his weight to look into the scope. The breeze that had fallen in the early morning was fluttering now, indecisive but strengthening. He swallowed as it brushed by his face and he caught the smell of rot.

They came around the bend, magnified in his scope. In the front, a man and a boy walked fast, and Dean's finger slid from the guard down to the trigger, the muscle at the point of his jaw leaping as he recognised the boy. The hairs lined up over the boy's chest and he squeezed.

The breeze chose the moment to change and increase and he swore to himself as the man beside the boy dropped to the ground, a large red hole flowering in the centre of his chest, the boy looking down then wildly around, and disappearing before he could get the next round in and line him up again.

From the cliff-tops, the steady clack-clack of the big guns sounded, muted with distance but the bodies of the first lines of the army disintegrating as the point five-oh calibre rounds punched through them, taking down not just the leading edge but those behind as well. A low whistle between the rock walls and Dean watched the missile hit the road, exploding on impact, the shrapnel, marked and bound and blessed inside the casing, bursting out and zipping through dozens of bodies, dropping them and keeping the demons locked inside the tattered shreds of flesh that were left.

The army hesitated, the front lines milling and vacillating on the spot then the orders must have come from behind and they surged forward, moving from a shambling march into a run, the defile filled with the guttural roar from their throats.

"Now," Dean said in a low voice.

Miles away, Franklin hit the button for the explosive packed into the walls of the cut and they went off, a staccato series of blasts along the line of stratification, bringing down the walls on top of the running corpses that filled the road from side to side.

Dean grabbed the gun, swinging the stabilisers up with a sharp click against the barrel and slung the bag of ammunition over his shoulder, turning and making his way east fast over the broken terrain. The bombs would buy a little more time, time to get to the next hit point and see how they were doing. From the other side, he could hear the Stingers, launched at the army that was still advancing down through the demolished cut. He heard screams from the other cliff side, hesitating for a moment, then hunching his shoulders and continuing down over the bare rock. More than just the two cambion. Or the boy had been given his orders.

By the time he reached the road, it was filled with great, gaping craters, and piled high with body parts, a thin wash of reddish black liquid seeping out from beneath the piles of the twice-dead corpses and trickling down over the seamed concrete. He dropped the Stig and the bag, pulling out the M60 and checking the mag, flipping to semi as he unhurriedly picked out his targets from the mass coming toward him.

Spread across the road, he caught a glimpse of Rufus to one side, beyond him Nate and Elias, Kelly, Winifred and Herb, Jack and the bright red hair of Willis, intermingled with the garrison of troops he didn't know, the trainees he hadn't met, shoulder to shoulder as they held their weapons and fired steadily, continuously, into the solid wall coming for them.

The demon-filled corpses dropped at each hit, the binding sigils on the bullets holding them to the dead flesh and the expansion of the bullet keeping that sigil locked into the body. Dean watched emotionlessly as the mound grew in front of them, distanced from the smells and sounds and spectacle, his world narrowed down to the sight at the end of the barrel and the targets that lay beyond it.

"Front line, retreat!"

Franklin's voice crackled in his ear and he ignored it, the muscles of arm and shoulder and finger aching as the barrel swung smoothly from one side of the road to the other.

"Repeat. Emplacement is up, they have you in range. Retreat!"

The words gradually registered and he looked around, seeing the flickered glances from the hunters and soldiers beside him. He realised, belatedly and with a sense of shock, that they were waiting for his order. He nodded abruptly to Rufus, lifting his arm in a full swing and was turning when the whistling filled the narrow space between the remains of the cut, growing louder, and his peripheral vision caught sight of the mortar as it arced down toward them.


	23. Chapter 23 Swords of Light and Darkness

**Chapter 23 Swords of Light and Darkness**

* * *

_**Hell**_

Inside his veins, inside his cells, he could feel the burning pain, a struggle for dominance between the blood of a fallen angel and the power of the entity he'd bound himself to. Raging heat and icy cold flushed through him in waves, localised sensations tore at him; an unbearable rash of itching along his side, escalating then gone; a numb feeling spreading through one leg, almost dropping him to the ground, creeping higher – then gone.

Sam flinched to one side as the demon drew a long sword from beneath the ragged cloak, the black metal of the blade seeming to pull in the light rather than reflect it.

He forced himself to straighten up, to find his balance on the broken rock under his feet, dragging the strength he had left from bone and muscle by a sheer act of will. He hadn't missed that that archdemon was favouring one hand – the hand that had touched him – or that the demon was wary, circling around him instead of attacking directly. He wasn't sure if it was the memory of their previous encounter or the sword he held in his hand, but the wariness sent a surge of hope through him.

Perception narrowed to his opponent and every action and sense became discrete, isolated and unconnected to any other. A whicker through thick air. A ringing clang as metal met metal. The juddering impact of the demon's blow against the sword, travelling from fingers to shoulder. Twisting his wrist to disengage the blade. Sweeping it low then up abruptly as he strode forward. A catch on the material, a deeper catch against something hard. A hiss from the stygian depths of the hood.

Asmodeus stepped back, and the black blade sizzled as it came for him. He dropped to one knee, rolling toward the rent hem, and his sword burst into flames, igniting the shroud and lighting up his face.

The noise hit Sam without warning, excruciatingly high, a whining deep in his mind. He felt a warm liquid rush from his nose, from the corners of his eyes and down over his cheeks as he thrust upward, finding no resistance. He rolled back, not seeing or hearing the black sword, feeling it somehow as it descended toward him. The point hit the rock where he'd been as he pushed himself to his feet. He could feel trickles down his back and side, cuts from the jagged rocks he'd rolled over.

The demon attacked again, a flurry of strikes, the sword swinging and diving at him, and Sam blocked automatically, Lucifer's bright blade moving faster, almost of its own volition, his fingers tightening and loosening without thought. A monstrous shaft of agony bit into his side as he turned too slowly, muscles throbbing and aching with the effort being demanded of them and the demon's sword running through him.

_Finish it_, he thought savagely, blinking away the blood that filmed his eyes. His fingers closed tightly around the hilt and he staggered to the left, dropping and rolling as the demon turned that way, shoving himself upright, a pained grunt bursting from him, as he straightened by its left flank. The wreathed blade slid up through the dusty folds of the black cloak and under the ribcage, and for a micro-second, Sam and the demon were completely still, locked inches from each other, the draining force of Asmodeus tugging and dragging at him, rank, rotted breath on his face.

The flare of light, deep within the demon where the sword had lodged, was excruciatingly brilliant and Sam fell backward, his arm thrown over his eyes. The force of the silent explosion dragged his hand from the hilt as he fell, leaving the sword in the demon's body. He rolled onto his chest, pressing his face against the pitted stone as the light erupted again, doubling and tripling, filling the world in unbearable argent, and the blood inside of him reacted, heating suddenly, an agonising conflagration that he couldn't escape from, burning in him. He couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't hear the scream that ripped up through his throat.

* * *

_**Golden, Colorado**_

Dean stared blankly at the smoke drifting across the sky, across his field of vision. He knew that it should mean something to him but he couldn't make the effort to decipher what that was. He couldn't hear anything. Couldn't feel anything. He wondered vaguely if that was going to be a problem.

The view of the sky lurched and swayed and pain hit him at the same time, pain from everywhere. Feeling returned in expanding detonations. In his head. His arm. His side. His back. He could feel the dampness of his clothes, sticking to his skin, the reek of blood and the acrid taste of burned skin and metal in the shallow breaths through his mouth. A face swam into view above him and he looked at it without recognition, seeing the lips moving, opening and closing, no words or even sounds emerging. Blazing trails of fire and curling white smoke lit up the sky behind the face, a lot of them and he wondered what the hell was going on, the thought skimming through his mind and disappearing as the pain jacked up again and his nervous system finally overloaded.

* * *

Franklin walked down the slope to the rapidly-erected tents, wiping the sweat off his forehead and smearing the soot and powder more widely over his face as he did it. A stride behind him, Jack followed, his face hollowed-out with the shock that was still making everything seem surreal.

"Who'd we lose?" Franklin asked Jack tiredly, ducking to enter the tent where Joseph and Billy were trying to attend to the wounded.

"Nate and Willis, Morrison, Wiezbowski, Jerry and Taylor," Jack told him as he ducked in behind him. "Two dozen others who are wounded, not counting Dean, Rufus, Winifred and Elias."

Franklin stopped beside the cot near the door, looking down at Rufus. The hunter's wounds had been cleaned and dressed but he would be out for awhile, he thought morosely. Winifred had fared a little better, she would keep her eye and the use of her arm. He walked between the hastily made-up cots and stopped at the end.

"How's he doing?"

Joseph looked up at him. "Lost blood, bruised everywhere, cracked ribs, more likely from being thrown than from the blast," he said, looking down at the man lying in the cot. He picked up a six-inch length of metal shrapnel from the box beside the cot. "Pulled this out of his right arm, but it missed the major blood vessels. Had some bleeding from the ears, but that stopped."

"Can we move them out?"

Joseph's gaze flicked around the room as he nodded. "Yeah, if we can take them down to Golden ahead of everyone else, keep them under."

"Not a problem," the grizzled ex-soldier said shortly. "Load 'em up, we need to get going." He turned to Jack and gestured abruptly to the tent flap. "Tell the boys to get this packed up pronto, I want the wounded on their way down five minutes ago and we're going to leave some surprises for the zombies, at every damned bend."

Jack nodded, straightening up. "We got a count yet?"

Franklin shook his head. "Guesstimate only. Somewhere between twelve and eighteen hundred."

"That's not bad."

The older man grinned evilly at him, his eyes cold and hard. "Oh boy, we're not finished yet, not by a long shot!"

* * *

_**Apollo Soucek Field, Virginia**_

Rona sat back on her heels, looking up at the wiring that snaked and looped through the engine above her. The harness had been replaced and it was all connected up. She swivelled on the balls of her feet and straightened, locking the engine bay cowling in place.

"Done?"

"Yeah," she said, looking over her shoulder at Travis. The pilot had been enslaved in Vegas and he bore the lines and scars of that experience, more in shadows that lived in his eyes than anywhere else. Both he and Marsh had started their flying careers in the Navy, flying the same planes they were attempting to get operational again. She hoped he remembered it all.

As if he could see her doubts, his face suddenly creased into a grin. "You don't forget flying one of these, Rona."

He ran his hand along the fuselage gently. "It's seventeen hundred miles give or take to Colorado," he added, looking at the armaments loaded under the wings. "This baby's range is about twelve hundred, we'll need somewhere to re-fuel along the way."

She nodded. "Ernie said there's an air-force base in Missouri. Should have underground tanks and a manual pumping system in place."

"Whiteman?"

"I think so," she said, lifting her hand to shade her eyes as she looked at him.

"That'll be fine." He turned away and walked across the concrete deck to the other Hornet.

"Rona!" Vince called out from the carrier's flat aft deck. "Got the hydraulics back online!"

Nodding, she turned for the superstructure amidship, heading for the controls that would bring up the elevated deck. Ernie met her at the door, his craggy face lit with excitement.

"We're going to Colorado in style," he said with a wide grin as he handed her a pair of binoculars and gestured over the long line of docks to a hangar on the other side of the access road.

Lifting the glasses, Rona stared at the shadowy shape within the hangar. "What is it?"

"US Marine Corp KC-130J Hercules, aerial refueller," Ernie said, with the frank delight of a small boy discovering unsuspected candy in his pocket. "Thirty-six hundred gallons capacity, we can refuel in the air and give them some kind of surprise with the rest of the payload."

"What are you thinking?" she asked, lowering the glasses.

"We got no time to load up with Franklin's specials," Ernie said, gesturing vaguely at the ordnance sheds that lined the long road. "So we're going to want to make sure that nothing bigger than a finger is left in one piece."

She nodded. "Are you good to fly it?"

He grinned smugly at her, blue eyes twinkling. "Cut my teeth on them and they haven't changed one little bit."

"Good to know," she said, the snort only half-disbelieving. "I'll meet you over there with Vince as soon as these birds are off the deck."

Turning to watch him stride fast down the carrier deck, Rona turned back to the controls, lifting the Hornets from their under-deck storage, the machinery greased and oiled, new pipe, new wiring, and the sunlight glinted off the tips of the missiles that lay like talons under their wings as they rose into it.

* * *

"We'll go first," Ernie said, looking at his fellow pilots and the two hunters. "Our cruising speed is under half of the Hornet's, so we'll meet you in the friendly skies over Missouri."

Travis nodded. "Loaded and ready, even got time for a leisurely breakfast while you guys get going."

"Will we be able to pick up Franklin's boosted signal before we get to Colorado?" Marsh asked, brows raised. "Timing is going to a bitch to arrange if we can't."

"He gave us a two-hundred and fifty mile range, in clear weather," Vince said slowly. "We should pick them up just before the state line from Kansas, maybe earlier depending on altitude."

Ernie looked at Travis. "Get up to your ceiling and do a circle when you get your orders. You'll have time to drop most of what of you got before we even make it, and then we'll finish off what you boys miss."

"Yeah, here's hoping it's not an all-out skirmish by then."

"Even if it is, our target's going to be plenty big enough." Marsh looked sourly at the dark sea to the east. "S'long as they don't have anti-aircraft guns."

Rona smiled. "No working aircraft since Lucifer went down? Would you drag along a few tons of metal on the chance that you might need it?" She stretched her neck and back. "'sides, you boys keep telling me you can bullseye anything bigger than trashcan from one of these things, so knocking out whatever artillery they have dragged along is gonna be priority number one."

* * *

_**Julesburg, Colorado**_

He walked across the shattered roads and through the deep golden fields, dark eyes glinting beneath black brows as the winds rose behind him and the clouds gathered in a long line along the broken horizon, curving around to either side like wings.

In the air between the cloud and earth, there was movement, gleams and spears of reflection on slick hide and long, translucent fangs, spiralling in the gathering gloom, a barely heard buzzing, constant and insistent. Under the long shadow of the cloud, the creatures that walked and crawled and flew hid in their nests and dens, sensitive instincts flinching from what passed overhead.

Belial could feel the pull of the angel who held dominion over the demons now on earth. He was further to the west. His fingers opened and closed involuntarily, in rhythm with his stride, with the scuff of his boots over the earth, or the tock of their heels on the asphalt, with the slap of the leather-sheathed sword that hung loosely at his side. What filled the space that had once been mind was a maelstrom of images, too diffused to be called memory, too splintered to be called thought. There was purpose, flickering here and there like sheet lightning. There was hunger and thirst, for pain. There was a muted glee that danced slowly around the edges of the chaos, waiting. Their bones would be picked clean in the depths of the abyss by those who rode the shifting air currents under the darkness of the clouds. All of them. Bones in the dark. In the deep black.

* * *

_**Cache Valley, Utah**_

Beyond the fast-moving river, the cliffs were wreathed in a thin, yellowish cloud and Father McConnaughey swallowed uncomfortably, his fingers clenching tightly around the vial in his hand. Sam was in there, somewhere, he thought. The job wasn't completed and all he had to do was to get in and find him. He ignored the icy thread of fear that slithered up his spine at the thought of what that would entail and looked along the riverbank.

Curving away from him, he could see the flat rocks protruding from the water's flow in between the willows, a few yards upriver. He walked toward them quickly, the feel of the silver and iron pendant warm against the base of his throat. He'd taken the talismans in case, just in case he might be required to get into the accursed plane. He hadn't really expected to use them.

The stones were simple to cross, a couple of feet between them, their surfaces broad and flat and dry. The priest had no idea of where along the near-vertical cliffs the door was and he walked along the river's edge, looking for a sign, for any clue that might lead him to the right spot.

The splash of the oar behind him made him jump in alarm, and he swung around to see the prow of a narrow, timber-hulled boat bump up against the bank. Standing at the stern, the boatman stared back at him. Charon, he realised belatedly, the recognition bringing a spurt of fear and one of astonishment simultaneously. The ferryman of the River Styx. Taller and broader than a man, the boatman's hair blazed red, hanging long down his back and tangled in the red beard that hid half of his face. Beneath the thick, reddish brows, his eyes gleamed silver, the over-sized craggy features expressionless.

"There is not much time."

Father McConnaughey's brows rose. "For Sam?"

Charon nodded, stepping to the bow of the boat in one stride and onto the bank with another. "The door is here," he said, pointing to the base of the cliff in front of them.

The priest walked to the cliff and opened the vial, pouring the blood of the guardian onto the ground. He stepped back rapidly as the rock split and groaned, a pulsing red light spilling out from within the door, turning the grey soil to russet.

"How do I find him?" He looked at the boatman.

"In here," Charon replied, tapping a thick finger against his temple. "All things Hell recognises."

_Think_ of him, Father McConnaughey thought, the moment's relief at having one question answered squashed as the gate rumbled further open and he saw into the flickering dark tunnel behind it. He stepped in before he could think of a reason not to, and hurried toward the brighter light. _Sam Winchester. Tall. Hazel eyes that were often filled with pain. Torn. Uncertain. Determined_.

Sam's face filled his mind and he gasped as the plane shifted around him, a thick blackness swallowing him whole, his stomach lurching in protest at the feeling of falling, his arms swinging out wildly, looking for anything to hold.

* * *

_**Golden, Colorado**_

The jerking halt of the truck brought Dean to consciousness, his eyes opening and taking in the curving canvas roof of the truck, inexplicable above his aching head. He tried to lift an arm to check if the lump he thought was there actually was as large as it felt, and the tug of soft restraints and the sharp bite of an injury froze the movement. Other sensations returned slowly, a dull ache in his back, a numbness along his side, from hip to ribcage.

Light flooded the interior of the truck back as the canvas flap at the rear was unzipped and held back. He squinted against the brightness, seeing a couple of blurry shapes moving up past him.

"Hey."

Both stopped and looked at him, despite the fact that he hadn't heard his own voice say the word, he'd only heard the intention of it, in his head.

One figure moved closed, the outline resolving into the tanned face of Joseph as he leaned close, his expression worried and his mouth moving. Dean saw the question in the raised brows, the slightly widened eyes, but he couldn't hear it. Couldn't hear anything.

"What happened?" He knew he'd asked it, out loud, since Joseph exchanged a fast look with the other figure but he hadn't heard it.

Joseph looked back at him and shook his head slightly. He straightened and went to the rear flap, pushing it back a little and looking out. Dean lay still. He slowly became aware that he could, in fact, hear something. A very distant ringing in his ears. What the fuck had happened? He remembered hearing the screams from the team on the other side of the cut, remembered hitting the road and dumping the Stig and his bag and firing the M60 at an oncoming horde of the demon-possessed corpses. That was it. His memories stopped there.

Shadows cut the light and he held himself still against the need to turn and look. Whatever it was that had happened, he'd done a reasonable amount of damage, he thought uneasily. Keeping still and quiet seemed like a good idea.

Franklin's face leaned in toward him, coming gradually into focus. He watched the man's mouth move and winced as the unconscious frown set off a deep-seated throb behind his eye.

Franklin turned to look over his shoulder, gesturing impatiently at Joseph. The trainee produced a pen and a pad of paper and Dean watched through half-closed eyes as the hunter scribbled something across the page and held it up for him.

_Bomb went off close to you. You got some pretty serious injuries, need to put you out for a bit, but we think the deafness is temporary, _he read the writing on the page_._

Temporary. He hoped so. Another part of the note registered belatedly and he lifted his left hand, the fingers twitching. After a second, Franklin slid the pen between them and braced the notepad.

_No. Not out._

He watched the older man's face screw up in frustration as he scribbled something beneath that.

_You're full of shrapnel, doc has to dig it all out._

Making the movement as small and slow as he could, Dean shook his head. He saw Franklin's expression slide from irritation to resignation and felt for the edge of the pad.

_What?_

The question mark wasn't entirely recognisable but Franklin knew what he was talking about.

He bent over the page, writing as fast as he could, shifting out of the way as Joseph and the other young man whose name Dean couldn't remember, lifted one of the stretchers and moved it out of the truck.

_Lost about 150 when they got their mortars in place. We took somewhere between 1200-1500, best guess. Blew up every bridge and bend as we came back down._

Dean touched the pen, pulled it free of Franklin's grip.

_Boze?_

Franklin looked at the single word and wrote again.

_Contacted us last night. Should be here before morning._

Dean scratched out the immediate question on the paper.

_How long since?_

Franklin glanced at him and held up the page.

_2 days._

Two days he'd been out cold? Dean thought incredulously. Two fucking days?!

He grabbed the pen, his hand moving across the paper soundlessly.

_Sam?_

Franklin read the question and took the pen back.

_No word._

Thinking about it, Dean realised that the demons would've disappeared or dissolved or whatever it was they were gonna do if his brother had managed to close the gates. He counted back to the last time he'd seen Sam. It was almost a week since Sam had left the keep. It couldn't have taken that long. Could it?

Franklin got up and Dean looked up at him. The ex-soldier held up the notepad.

_You're out of it. Rest. I'll bring Boze and Tim by when they get here._

The hell he was out of it, he thought mulishly as Franklin climbed out of the truck and Joseph and … and … _Perry_, he thought suddenly, a wash of relief at the achievement fluxing through him, _the other trainee's name was Perry_ … climbed back in to lift out another stretcher. He needed Cas, that's all. Needed Cas' magic touch and he'd be back in business.

He closed his eyes, trying to focus his thoughts on the angel.

_Cas? You hearing me? Cas, need you here, man. Need you here NOW._

* * *

_**Schlossweg, Switzerland**_

Luc looked around the empty shore cautiously. The Seestrasse had long been broken into pieces, weeds and trees growing through the cracks right down to the shores of Lake Thun now. The forest that had climbed the terraced hill behind the small village had grown as well, the trees tall and dark, spreading across the slopes and climbing to the peak. A good hiding place for all sorts of things, he thought uneasily.

Twenty feet below him, Marc's flashlight was still just visible, the beam playing around the interior rooms of the building. He touched the microphone that rested on the front of his throat lightly.

"Anything?"

"Not yet," Marc's voice came back through the small earpiece, slightly muffled.

They'd back-tracked the trail left by the army through the mountains, the trail easy enough to follow. The building was old and ornate, a summer escape for some aristocratic family in the old days, he thought distractedly, turned into a lake-side hotel before the virus had changed the world. The Grigori had been here, had raised their spells here, he could almost smell the pungent odour of their magic clinging to the stone and brick of the place. The last place their comms had been able to reach the order, Michel had told them that the nine in the United States had raised an army as well.

Where the hell had they'd gotten all the demons, he wondered? Winchester had killed the upstart king. No one thought that the archdemons, once loose, would ever deal with the Fallen. The oldest documents they'd been able to free from beneath the Vatican's vaults had give some histories of Heaven and Hell that were older than any other they'd had or seen or even heard of, and in them, the antipathy felt for what Lucifer had termed the 'Tainted Ones' had been extreme.

"Luc," Marc's voice whispered against his ear and he scanned the countryside briefly before answering.

"Yes."

"Get down here, this is –" Marc's voice trailed away to a breath. "This is unbelievable."

Luc frowned, unable to pinpoint the exact emotion he could hear in the other man's voice. Something that was close to awe but with an edge of disgust, he thought, the analysis setting off his internal alarms. He dropped, sliding down the steep, grassy slope feet first.

"On my way."

Drawing his knife, a long silver blade with a thick, serrated back edge, he walked into the dark building cautiously, following Marc's small symbols, chalked on the walls and doors.

He found the hunter in the basement of the building.

The room was square, taking up almost the same square footage as the building above. To one side of the narrow, curving staircase, shelving lined the walls, and dozens of books, manuscripts and ledgers were still there, along the soft, dry scent of old paper. On the other side … Luc stopped as he saw the machine.

"_Merde_," he muttered, glancing across to Marc. "What the hell is it?"

"_Baisée si je sais!_" Marc said miserably, gesturing at the other end of the enormous barrel-like shape. "If you want to keep your breakfast and your sleep, don't look at this."

Luc walked slowly forward. The machine was perhaps twenty feet long and four feet in diameter, a long tube, reminding him incongruously of a mini-sub. The metal skin was curved into sheets and bolted together to form the cylindrical shape, attached to and set within a framework that appeared to protrude through the cylinder, in and out with no apparent purpose. Hoses, pipes and wiring covered most of the surface.

On one side, a bank of monitors, computers and sensors fed tubes in and out of the peculiar device. He rounded the end and caught the odour before he saw the high-sided, rectangular bin that stood beneath the end of the cylinder, throat closing up in an automatic gag reflex, his face paling beneath the tan skin.

Holding a hand over his nose and mouth, he edged closer and peered inside, swinging away immediately, his eyes shut tightly as he walked across the room to the bookshelves. A long fucking time since he'd come that close to seeing anything that could make his stomach react, he thought, the images still engraved at the back of his eyelids. He pulled in and let out several deep breaths, leaning against the shelving on one stiff arm, forcing the twitching muscles in his abdomen to relax.

Marc walked over to him, a bundle of loose papers in one hand, his face pale and waxen.

"This was under it," he said, leaning a shoulder against the shelving and handing over the papers. "They were testing something, or making something – my German isn't so good."

Luc took the papers and straightened up, flicking through them. Half were covered with scribbled formulae; he frowned at the symbols, picking out familiar chemicals randomly. The others were notes, of a procedure, he thought, reading the uneven hand slowly. He couldn't decipher enough to decide what it was. The image of the contents of the rectangular bin slid into his mind again and he stared at the notes, feeling the edges of the puzzle drawing together, but not into a picture, not yet.

"Come on, we'll have to check through what they left and take it all. Francesca and Alain will be able to do more with this than we can."

Marc nodded, looking around the room. "I do not know why, but it looks slightly familiar to me, this room, these … things," he said, gesturing toward the machine without looking at it again. "Not as if I've seen this, but something like it."

"It might come," Luc said, lifting a dark brow. "Leave it alone and it might come back without you prodding at it."

"Yes." Marc turned away and began to gather the books. "Maybe."

* * *

_**Hell**_

Father McConnaughey tripped and fell onto his hands and knees as the blackness disappeared and the ground wasn't where he expected it to be. The sharp rocks sliced easily through his palms and knees, and he grunted in pain, looking up at the cloud that boiled and churned above him, his eyes stinging at the bite of the fumes of sulphuric acid that filled the air.

He turned his head and scrambled to his feet, running the short distance to where Sam lay on his back, clothes torn and blood-soaked, his skin almost luminescent beneath them.

"Sam?" He dropped to his knees, gaze flicking past the man on the ground. A shapeless bundle of dark cloth lay a few feet beyond Sam, the edges charred and crumbling. Looking back down, the priest slid his arm beneath Sam's shoulders and lifted him, shifting closer as his head fell back. At the base of Sam's neck, the cross he'd given him stood out in the vee of his ripped shirt, as blackened and scorched as the demon's shroud.

He could see the faint pulse, beating erratically just above the cross and he let his breath out, hand reaching for his jacket pocket and pulling out a small flask of water. It was holy water, but he didn't think it would matter at a time like this. He undid the cap with his teeth and poured a little over Sam's face, and the flickering light under the pale olive skin brightened for a second, then slid away, deeper perhaps. Tipping a little more into Sam's mouth, he waited and after a few moments, he saw him swallow slowly, eyelids fluttering as he struggled to return to consciousness.

"Sam?"

The hazel eyes were bloodshot, the pupils huge and black as they focussed on him.

"Bless … me … Father," Sam croaked, his eyes rolling back for a moment and the lids closing. "I … have … sinned."

"Sam, don't talk," Father McConnaughey said quickly, moving again to get his arm further around the broad-shouldered hunter. "Take a minute, son."

"No," Sam said, and his eyes opened again, the pupils a little smaller, a grimace twisting his face. "No."

He groaned as he put his hand behind him, pushing upward out of the priest's grip.

Father McConnaughey felt a warm rush of liquid over his arm as Sam moved and looked down, his face tightening as he saw the gaping wound there.

"Stop, stop moving – I have to stop the bleeding." He dragged his jacket off, ripping the sleeves along the shoulder seams, wadding the cloth up and pressing it against Sam's side.

"No." Sam turned his head and stared at him. "Just hear me, Father. Hear me and … give me absolution."

"Sam, let's get you out of here –"

Sam smiled gently at him, the expression underlain with pain. "I'm not leaving, Father … it's been – I don't know … how long it's been … since my last confession."

Father McConnaughey bowed his head and turned aside, looking at the jagged outlines of the cliffs as Sam spoke, his breath catching and wheezing, the words forced out slowly.

"I told myself I didn't know … what I doing, but I knew, Father. Somewhere … buried pretty deep, but still in me … I knew."

He didn't recite his sins. He told his story, all of it, from the moment he'd realised he never wanted to do what his family did, and realised he would never be able to make his father and brother understand that, to breaking free. And Jessica. And her death.

Father McConnaughey listened, his hands locked together in front of him, his knees aching from the sharp rock, blood drying on the torn edges of his clothing. He heard of John Winchester's sacrifice. And of Dean's. He heard the despair in Sam's voice as he told him of the months that had followed his brother's death. And the way he'd tried to blot it out. Drinking. Killing. Searching. Begging.

"When he got out, the second I saw him, I knew that what I'd been doing all this time, it was wrong. I knew it. But I couldn't admit it. Not to him. Not to myself," Sam said, clearing his throat abruptly. "And when he found out, I knew it again, knew it in the expression in his eyes. He looked at me, and – and –"

Father McConnaughey waited, listening to the struggle of the man beside him to get past his memories, in the thickness of his voice, in the odd gaps and silences.

"He was disappointed … and right … there, I could have … stopped. Could've followed him. But I chose not to do that. I told him … I told him … he was weak," Sam said, his breath hitching in his chest at the crystal-clear memory he had of Dean's eyes at that moment, the shadow that passed through them and vanished. "And I told him … he was broken. And I tried to kill him."

He licked his lips, his fingers tingling with the feel of his brother's neck beneath them. "Something stopped me. I don't know what it was. I wanted to. At that moment, it was in my head that if I killed there and then I would finally be free of him, of them. My family. My duty. I would be able to do what I wanted."

Temptation, the priest thought. Lucifer reaching out through the bars even then. The killing of his brother would have stained Sam's soul sufficiently to enable the rest of the plan to proceed more swiftly.

"But something stopped me and I left. And when I got to the convent –"

The deeply drawn breath brought a fit of coughing, and Father McConnaughey turned back to Sam, wrapping his arm around his shoulders and holding him tightly as he jerked with the sharp, wracking attempts to get air into his lungs. Neither looked at the blood spray that covered Sam's jeans, and the rocks around him. The priest gave him the flask as it began to ease, and Sam swallowed the water convulsively, his fingers white-knuckled around the small metal case. Sweat dripped from the ends of his hair and he lifted a shaking hand to wipe it from his forehead, the gesture surreptitiously wiping the moisture from his cheeks as well.

"I k-killed her, Father, an innocent woman. In cold blood, knowing exactly what I was doing," Sam said, his voice raw and cracked. "I wasn't human when I killed Lilith and broke the last seal on Lucifer's cage. And I held Ruby as Dean killed her." He looked down, sagging slightly in the priest's hold, his eyelids falling a little. "In that one moment, when I knew what I'd done, I've never been that goddamned scared in my life. Not because the devil was getting out. But because everything I'd thought, everything I'd told myself – it'd all been a lie. And I'd been the one doing the lying. Dean had been right all along, and I'd chosen to believe the lie instead of him."

The priest felt the shudder ripple through Sam's frame, and tightened his grip around his shoulders as it deepened, shaking them both. It was almost as if it were a response to – or a _recognition_ of – what the hunter was saying, he thought uneasily.

"I thought I'd paid for it," Sam said, and Father McConnaughey frowned as he listened, hearing the stentorian rumble from Sam's chest, his words losing their endings as he tried to breathe faster. "Thought … I paid."

"Sam?"

"Thought …" Sam murmured, his eyes closed. "Thought I could make my brother understand that I'd changed."

"Sam, you don't need to keep going –" the priest said, looking worriedly at Sam's face, at the almost-dreamy expression on it. Sam's eyes opened, focussing on him.

"Yes, I do." He straightened a little, spitting out a mouthful of blood. "Someone has to hear it, someone has to know about it, not just me," he said, the vagueness disappearing abruptly, his voice rising as he turned to look at him. "Dean won't let me say it. He doesn't want to hear me say it, but I have to get it out of my head, Father, please –"

"You've confessed, Sam," Father McConnaughey said, cutting him off gently. "I can give you absolution."

For a moment, he thought that the young man would argue. But something in Sam tightened and his expression was flat when he looked back at the priest.

"What do I do?"

"Pray for forgiveness, if that's what you want," the priest told him, feeling Sam's skin heating under his arm. "And make an atonement."

The deep shudders became more pronounced, and his head rolled back. The light was flickering more rapidly beneath his skin and the heat rising from his body was well past what the priest considered a normal high temperature. The man was going to combust in his arms, he thought.

Heat flashed and crackled through him, lightning strikes from the storm he could feel building in his body. He searched for what he wanted to say, what he wanted to ask, the words slipping in and out of his thoughts, as impermeably as water through the meshes of a net, unable to grasp onto them.

_I'm sorry_. It seemed the most important thing but he couldn't continue. Sorry for what? For _everything_. For the choices made. For the things he'd done. The things he'd said. For the pain and the suffering and the ongoing lie that he'd had to keep close to keep it all going. He was sorry, he was so damned sorry for all those things that he could hardly breathe with the anguish that was filling his chest and throat.

_I turned away from what I knew_. That was true as well. Turned from his conscience, from his family, turned away from everything he knew mattered and had turned toward a path that had felt wrong from the start.

_I killed._

His heartbeat accelerated as the heat increased, oceanic waves of heat that rolled through him, burning and roasting him from the inside out. He could feel sweat running down his face, hear the priest who supported him talking, yelling. He couldn't pay attention to those things now.

_Please … forgive me._

Pain coruscated up his spine, from tail-bone to skull, blinding him and contracting every muscle into steel rigidity, bursting the thin walls of the smaller blood vessels and bulging the walls of the larger, expanding out into bone and tendon and nerve and into every cell.

Then it was gone.

All of it. He felt nothing but the slow, steadiness of his heart, beating quietly in his chest, saw darkness behind his closed eyelids, heard Father McConnaughey's hoarse, panting breaths next to his ear.

Sam opened his eyes and sat up, leaning forward uncertainly, eyes unfocussed as he searched his body for any trace of the heat or pain that had filled him a second ago. There was none.

He turned his head, looking at the priest. "It's gone."

Father McConnaughey nodded slightly, face flushed and shining with perspiration, his eyes wide. "And you are absolved of your sins, in the eyes of the Almighty."

The spell to complete the third trial blazed in Sam's mind and he spoke the words without thinking about it, his hands closing and tightening around the hilt of Lucifer's sword.

The single chime of a bell.

White.

_Nothing._

* * *

Father McConnaughey stared as Sam arched up, his back bowed, his skin lit up from beneath with a brilliant light that crawled through his body, brightening over his heart and in his face, throwing bone and tendon and muscle striation into painfully sharp relief. The light died and Sam crumpled, eyes half-open and staring sightlessly, the angel sword falling from his hands and clanging on the rock, his head hitting the rock once with a dull thud.

"Sam? Sam!" He leaned forward, uncaring of the fresh cuts that the rock tore into his palms as he reached for the hunter, his fingers pressing tightly against the side of Sam's neck.

"SAM!"

There was no pulse beating in the artery there. He bent and pressed his ear against Sam's chest, grimacing at the stillness and the silence that was all he could feel or hear.

_Test unto death_, the tablet had said. They'd thought it meant after the closing of the gates, but that hadn't happened yet, Sam hadn't done that yet. The blood had been burned out, he was sure of it, the contract had been fulfilled with the completion of the third trial. He swore to himself, his head snapping up to look accusingly at the sky of the accursed plane above him.

"He wasn't finished yet!"

* * *

_**West Keep, Kansas**_

"How is she!?" Bobby leapt from the wooden bench in the wide hall as Merrin came out of the door leading to the surgery. "It's been hours!"

The stout-figured, dark-haired nurse looked at him patiently. "She's doing fine, Bobby. You're a father."

"Wha –" He pushed the hat off his head, staring past her at the closed door. "Really? It's all okay?"

"A girl and a boy, both healthy, all their fingers and toes," Merrin confirmed dryly, glancing at the room. "Dr Malley is just putting in some stitches, but everything went well, and Ellen's doing great."

The weight he'd been carrying around for the last day and a half vanished and he wondered distractedly if he actually was floating an inch or two above the floor.

"Can I see her? Them?"

"Give Bob five minutes," Merrin told him, turning for the pharmacy. "They'll be finished and she'll be ready for you."

He nodded and paced back to the bench, staring at it for a long moment, then turning and striding back to the door. He couldn't sit. Needed to move. A father.

The last two weeks had been busy ones for the medical staff in every one of the keeps, he knew. The trainee midwives and nurses had seen increasing numbers of births every day, and were going to get their twenty-five years of experience in every possible childbirth problem in the next six weeks. Jo said that Meredyth and Doc Hadley were finding the same thing in Michigan. She didn't sound nervous, exactly, but there'd been an edge to her voice. She was due in a few days.

A boy and a girl. He marvelled at the idea. One of each. Pigeon pair. The parental clichés kept popping in and out of his thoughts and he couldn't make them fit with anything he'd done in the last twenty-eight years. A father.

Bob Malley stuck his head through the door and looked around. "Bobby, you ready?"

He wasn't. Not nearly ready for any of it, he thought apprehensively. But it was too late now. He nodded, a nervous grin almost disappearing in the scrubby auburn beard as he hurried to the door.

Ellen lay in the room at the end of the short hallway that served the rooms set aside for the medical team, the lines in her face a little deeper and her cheeks a little hollowed out but smiling at him as he edged through the door, hat clutched in both hands.

"Thought you'd never show," she said, one brow raised.

"I, uh, I was, Merrin said –" Bobby stammered, walking to the bed and looking at the floor.

Ellen laughed softly. "God, Bobby, relax, I'm joking." She watched his shoulders slump a little and the corner of her mouth lifted slightly. "You can sit in on the next one."

His eyebrows hit his hairline before he realised she was winding him up again, and he gave her a mock scowl, pulling the chair over from the wall and sitting next to her.

"Told the doc to tie it all up," Ellen told him, the glint of amusement still in her warm, brown eyes. "These'll be enough for us."

He nodded and looked at her. "How are you doin'?"

"Sore," she said with a slight shrug. "Tired. Forgot about all that."

"Nothing, uh, serious?"

"No," she reassured him, and glanced to the other side of the bed. "Your son and daughter are just there, Bobby. Aren't you going to look at them?"

He got up, and walked slowly around the bed, leaving his cap on the end as he passed it. Shep and Miller, the keep's carpenters, had been making nothing but simple cradles for the last four months, and the two babies were wrapped and bundled in two of them, where Ellen could see them. He saw the identical shocks of bright red hair and turned to her, mouth opening.

"I know," she said, the side of her mouth tucking in. "My dad was a redhead, not all your fault."

Leaning closer, he started a little as the infant wrapped in the blue blanket opened his eyes. It took a moment for Bobby to realise that they were slightly unfocussed, huge and a bright blue.

"Merrin wants to know what their names are," Ellen said, as he gently touched the baby's cheek with the tip of one forefinger.

"Uh …"

She snorted softly. "I was thinking I like Elizabeth."

Bobby lifted his head and stared at her. Elizabeth had been his mother's name. He nodded slowly, his eyes a little brighter than they'd been.

"I like William, for our son," he said, very quietly, smiling a little as he saw her expression change.

* * *

_**Golden, Colorado**_

The angel looked out through the tent flap and back at the man lying on the cot beside him. He leaned forward and rested his fingertips against Dean's forehead, his eyes closing. The frequencies in his mind harmonised, and the power of billions of souls slid through him and into the man.

Dean sucked in a deep breath, arms and legs twitching as his body heated, cells forced into instant action to repair the damage that naturally took months, the tears and breaks and bruising flushed through and rejoined, his senses returning to him in full force.

Castiel looked into his eyes and straightened, stepping back a little. Dean was strangely particular about how close others got.

"Didn't think you heard me," the hunter said, sitting up, a half-disbelieving smile tugging at his mouth as he heard the shouts and sounds of engines and gunfire from outside. He looked up at the angel.

"Sam is in Hell," Cas told him bluntly, his face expressionless. "Father McConnaughey followed him."

Dean felt a small relief that his brother wasn't completely alone in there. He swung his legs off the edge of the cot and stood up cautiously, his gaze unfocussed as he waited for his body to tell him about any problems. It didn't have anything to report and he looked at Castiel.

"We need help," he said, gesturing vaguely toward the flap. "We're cutting them down but they're gonna overrun us. Just a matter of time."

The angel nodded unhappily. "I know."

"Any of your wingmen willing to come down here and kick some Fallen ass?"

Cas blinked. "I don't know. I've been summoned by Michael."

"Will he help?"

"I don't know," Cas repeated, looking away. He suspected he wouldn't.

Seeing the angel's discomfiture, Dean turned, getting his gun and knife from the box that sat near the head of the cot.

"I will ask, Dean," Cas said to his back. "But don't – don't expect help."

He shrugged. "Nah, I know better than that," he said, turning to look at the angel. "I need you to do me a favour."

"What kind of favour?"

"Same for the others as you did for me," Dean said, gesturing at the other cots in the tent. "If Heaven's gonna pretend this has nothing to do with them, I need every single person here on their feet."

Castiel's mouth tightened as he nodded and walked to the next cot, Dean following him slowly. Elias and Winifred, Markson, Deke, Herb and Drew. And Rufus.

The flutter of wings stirred the edge of the flap tied back next to the open doorway and Dean looked down at the old hunter.

"Rise and shine, princess."

Rufus opened his eyes warily, looking around before his gaze returned to Dean's face. "What the hell happened?"

"Second chance," Dean said, extending a hand to him and pulling him up. "I wouldn't bet on getting another one."

"Cas got business in Heaven?"

"Some kind," Dean said dismissively. "We need to find Franklin."

He walked outside, Rufus on his heels and the other hunters following more slowly as they looked around and gathered their gear.

Dean saw the burly hunter across the concrete interchange, and lengthened his stride. He was going to enjoy the double-take, he thought, looking around. The junction had been turned into a base-camp, vehicles and tents and sandbagged defensive walls surrounding it. They were too low for any of that to do much good, he realised, glancing back over his shoulder at the gently sloping road that led west into the mountains. They'd be sitting ducks here.

Franklin turned and Dean watched his eyes widen as he saw them coming toward him.

"What the fuck?"

"Pays to have friends in high places," Rufus said dryly as they reached him.

"What's the story, Franklin?" Dean turned to watch the activity around the camp. "We can't stay here."

"No," Franklin agreed readily, nodding to the hunters as they walked up. "Boze called in, he's close. Said he'll be here before dawn. We'll meet him halfway out, make them come to us and take the height advantage away."

"On open ground, they'll flank us," Rufus said, looking east, his brows drawing together sharply as he saw the black cloud spread out over the countryside to the north. "What the hell is that?"

Dean and Franklin turned to look and Franklin shook his head. "No idea."

"It's the archdemon," Dean said expressionlessly. "Supposed to be pulling that cloud around so the hellspawn don't get sunburned."

Rufus looked at him. "Well. That ups the ante."

Shrugging, Dean turned away. "The more demons up here, the less Sam has to worry about."

Franklin and Rufus exchanged a fast glance. Elias cleared his throat.

"How far is the army up the interstate?" he asked Franklin.

"About fifteen miles," Franklin said, his gaze following the hunter's. "We blew up a helluva lotta crap on our way out, and it's slowing them down. They'll probably make it here by morning."

"You have to move out," Dean said, looking at the sloping hillsides to either side of the junction. "Take everyone down and get those earthmovers going on some banks."

Four sets of narrowed eyes stared at him suspiciously. "And you'll be?"

Dean heard the argument in Franklin's voice, ready to leap out at the slightest provocation. "Up there."

He pointed to the heavily wooded crest of the slope above them. "I need three volunteers, that's it. We'll take the launchers and keep firing until we run out of ammo."

"Or they figure out where you are and kill you," Franklin said sourly. He looked at the slope. "Even if you could get back out through the woods behind that hill, you'd be trapped back there. Only take them a few minutes to send a good-sized bomb your way and you won't get out at all."

"No," Dean said, shaking his head. "Look at the range. We can keep hitting them from here, they won't have any defences set up. They can't set up defences because we'll be above them."

"We don't need to buy that sort of time, Dean."

"Yeah, we do," Dean contradicted him sharply, looking down toward the plain. "Boze ain't here and there's more than five thousand coming down that road and you've got less than three hundred and no time to get clear. We need the time. And I can get it."

Elias ducked his head and took a step closer to him. "Not alone."

Rufus looked sourly from one to the other. "Four of us should be able to make enough noise to let you pull back, Franklin, right back and wait for Boze and Tim." He looked up at the hill. "One to load, one to fire, each side."

Dean nodded, not liking the way the older man had said 'us'. "Right, but you're going with Franklin," he told Rufus.

"Says you?" Rufus snorted, lip curling up. "Jack and I'll take the southern slope."

"No. You're needed here, with them," Dean argued, his voice deepening. "We don't have that many people here who know how to run a battle."

Franklin nodded, glancing at the hunter. "Hate to say it, but he's right, Rufus. Could use you."

"Win and me'll take the southern slope," Herb said, stepping forward after he'd glanced at the slim woman for confirmation. The burns had healed, mostly, thickened scar tissue patterning her dark skin down her left side. She'd looked harder and meaner before the attack, Dean thought irrelevantly.

For a moment, there was a silence between the small group. It wasn't quite suicidal, Rufus thought, just damnably close to it. He looked at the forested top of the hills then back at Dean.

"You make sure you get out of there when you run out of ammo."

Dean's mouth twitched to one side. "You make sure you're ready when the rest come down onto the flat ground."

Franklin let out his breath and shook his head. "All finished with the tearful goodbyes? Can we go now?"

He turned away and whistled, lifting an arm and swinging it slowly around. The camp leapt into activity as everyone fell to their assigned duties.

Rufus looked at Dean. "You think this'll make a big enough diversion?"

Dean looked at the cloud heading for them. "Sam can take on one archdemon with that sword. Not two. So long as that fucker's heading for us, he can do what he has to do."

"It's been nearly a week," Rufus said quietly.

"Hell's a bitch to find your way around."

* * *

From the crest, Dean looked down as the last of the trucks pulled away, the line trundling slowly east, skirting the holes and cracks in the wide, concrete road and heading out to the plain. He turned his head and looked up the road.

The army would be in sight the whole way down and they would be in range. They wouldn't be able to hold them very long, he knew, would have to make their hits count for as much as possible. But he thought that they'd be able to keep their attention, and give the rest time to get dug in somewhere.

Elias tossed him a water bottle and he caught it, unscrewing the cap and tipping the water into his mouth, swallowing it down.

"They're here," Win's voice said softly into his ear and he screwed the cap back on the water bottle, dropping it at his feet as he nodded to the auburn-haired hunter. Picking up the launcher and settling it onto his shoulder, he ducked his head to look through the scope.

The leading edge were all corpses, he noted emotionlessly, feeling the weight of the shell as it slid down into the tube. He wanted the big guns they were dragging behind them.

"Yippee ki yay," he murmured and slid his finger over the firing button.

* * *

_**Heaven**_

Castiel looked around the empty throne chamber and walked out through the double doors, looking around at the wide, empty halls. Where were they all, he wondered?

The city of angels was a vast complex of mostly open-sided buildings, each with their own purpose, set on the varying levels of the folds and hillsides of a valley that wasn't a valley at all. In some respects, the city didn't exist. The plane was an elaborate construct with many co-existing levels, for all of its inhabitants. And it was a resting point, a place to receive peace and contentment before the call to return became irresistible. For the angels who watched over the worlds of their Father, it was a grand city, its pale, cool colours and gentle silences conducive to their work. For the souls of humanity, it was entirely different. Even the landscape between the individual boundaries was different.

He heard shouting ahead, echoing from the polished stone walls of the hall and began to run.

At the end of the hall, a colonnaded walkway led to another building and Cas slowed as he saw the flashes of light and heard the ring of metal on metal. From the end of the walkway and spilling down over the grassy slopes to either side, angels were fighting, wings raised and glowing, faces hard and angry, all beauty gone.

He drew his sword as Michael appeared on a stone terrace on the other side of the shallow valley. The archangel was dressed in armour, alabaster wings spread out to either side as he raised his sword and the Host behind him followed him like a flock of birds into the melee, blazing more brightly than stars in the diffused pearly light, a shout from massed throats filling the valley like a clap of thunder.

Plunging down the incline from the walkway, Cas recognised the rebels and felt his stride falter. Many there were those he'd expected to see, malcontents and those who'd spoken for Lucifer but had turned away before being cast down, the factions who had disapproved quietly of humanity's favour for millennia, but there were others he had not thought discontented, friends who had never hinted at the desire for violent treason. He swept through the outer skirmishes, and started as a hand fell onto his shoulder.

"Cas, impeccable timing, as usual," Balthazar's voice drawled behind him.

"What happened here?"

"Good question." The angel swung around and fought off an attack, looking back at Cas as his sword disappeared into the attacker's chest and light flooded out of the dying construct. "Camael has fled to the earthly plane. He stirred this lot up first, big speech about the natural order of the universe and the usual embellishments."

"Has Michael commanded you to remain?" Cas asked, ducking under a swinging sword and twisting around to drive his own upward under the ribcage and into the heart. He turned away from the blinding burst of light and looked at Balthazar.

"No," Balthazar allowed warily.

"Can you get to the Watchers, take them to where the humans are fighting?"

"Why?" The angel drove his sword backwards in a single, smooth action, shifting to one side as the angel behind him fell to the ground, his construct solidifying as the light poured out.

"They need help and Michael may not provide any," Cas told him. "But I must stay and ask. Kokabiel is trapped. If his brothers can free him, the demons will be forced to leave their vessels."

Balthazar looked at him steadily for a moment, then nodded abruptly. Cas turned away from the empty spot where the angel had stood and swung his sword, cutting down the angel in front of him.

* * *

_**Hell**_

Sam opened his eyes. A part of him was aware that they weren't really open, that here, in this place of shifting colour and light, he had no eyes. Habits of a lifetime died hard.

_You have completed the trials._

The words surrounded him and penetrated him, wrapped in a feeling of contentment and satisfaction.

_Where am I?_

_On the threshold of life and death, between the worlds._

_Am I dead?_

_Clinically._

The feeling changed subtly to a gentle amusement and he blinked.

_I haven't closed the gates._

_No._

Sam waited, unsure of what feeling had accompanied the quiet agreement.

_Have I failed?_

_No._

The light flickered around him, brightening slowly. He realised disorientedly that he couldn't see himself, no hands or arms where he expected them to be, no body or weight or responding sense of anything surrounding him. He wondered distractedly how he was perceiving the light.

_The same way you perceive my intent._

The gentle amusement returned.

_You have given up your life to close the gates. You are purified in soul and in body. You could leave your mortal existence. Choose a path of peace everlasting._

_I can't leave them to die._

_All things die._

_In their right time_, Sam argued, feeling a rush of uneasiness at the lack of feeling in the words.

_Do you know their right time, Sam Winchester?_

Fragments of memory slipped through his mind. Images and sounds and feelings. He recognised them but he couldn't find a connection to them, a feeling to go with them. They made him feel sad.

_Are we just an experiment to you?_

_No._

_I want to finish what I started._

The amusement vanished and Sam was cocooned in a vast sensation of warmth and approval, of contentment and certainty.

* * *

Sam opened his eyes and threw an arm over his face at the brightness that flooded them, glimpsing the shock on the priest's face as he struggled to sit up.

"Sam?"

"Yeah –" he croaked, mouth and throat desert-dry, his tongue too big. "Water?"

He felt the small flask pressed into his palm and tipped it into his mouth, the trickle of tepid holy water relieving the thickness.

"You were dead."

Lowering his arm, Sam squinted at the man beside him. "I was?"

"For fifteen minutes," Father McConnaughey confirmed worriedly, staring at his face. "What do you remember?"

Sam's brow wrinkled as he tried to answer that. "I remember talking to you, confessing. I remember the pain was gone, from everywhere."

"Do you remember saying the spell?"

He thought for a moment then shook his head. "No, blanked out that bit."

"You said the spell and went into convulsions, Sam," the priest said slowly. "Then you were gone."

The two men looked at each other for a moment, both considering the implications of that, then Sam pushed it aside as he rolled onto his knees.

"I have to close the gates."

"Do you know how?" Father McConnaughey climbed stiffly to his feet.

Sam looked at him, a slight smile lifting one side of his mouth. "Yeah, I do. Don't ask me how."

"I can manage that." The priest looked around the level.

"You need to get out of here," Sam told him, glancing around as well. "I don't know how long there'll be to get clear when they start closing."

"Not without you, Sam," Father McConnaughey said firmly.

Sam smiled a little at the tone of the priest's voice. "This is the easy part, Father. I'll be fine, but I can't start while you're in here."

* * *

_**Golden, Colorado**_

"We're out," Elias' voice said in Dean's ear and he lowered the business end of the launcher, looking at the road through the rising smoke and flames that filled the shallow cutting.

On the other side of the cutting, Herb and Win had confined themselves to hitting the ranks of the dead, and from one side to the other, corpses were piled twenty deep, blocking the road completely, more of the Grigori's soldiers dying as they pulled aside the bodies. It'd left him free to concentrate on what was behind the foot soldiers, the lines of vehicles that carried weapons and ammunition, judging by the spectacular explosions when he'd hit them, and behind those, the armoured vehicles. He'd taken out six tanks before the cumbersome and slow machines had managed to turn around and inch their way back up the road to the bend that would give them cover. The last one had been a lucky hit as it'd disappeared around the corner.

"Let's go." He dropped the heavy weapon on the ground and Elias looked up at him.

"Leave or take?"

"Leave," Dean said, rolling his shoulder and picking up the black canvas gear bag that held a couple of rifles, Franklin's sigil ammo and several mines. "We're gonna have company any minute."

As the trucks and tanks had vaporised in fireballs, he'd seen the second wave of the army's infantry running down toward them. Not corpses, he'd realised, seeing the healthy skin, the smooth co-ordination of their limbs. They would be climbing the sides of the cutting, looking to flank or box them in. The back of his neck was prickling furiously with instinctive alarms and he tossed Elias a rifle, pulled out his own and slung the bag over his shoulder, walking fast through the thick trees east and north to avoid any possible entanglements.

Through the sensitive ear-piece he could hear Herb and Win's low muttered conversation as they abandoned their vantage point and started down, angling further south.

The crackle of the undergrowth, behind and below them, gave him warning. He stopped, hearing Elias freeze to his right, sinking slowly down beside the trunk of a tree as the snap of a branch sounded a little higher.

They were maybe two miles from the vehicles Franklin had left for them, down at the end of the junction, and in between was a wooded saddle and an open valley. Outrunning the demons who were creeping across the slopes behind them wasn't going to be option, he thought. A sideways glance at Elias confirmed that as the auburn-haired hunter rolled his eyes. He made a short chopping gesture and Elias nodded, shifting silently around the thick stand of bracken and moving doubled-over between the trees. Rising slowly, Dean leaned out from behind the trunk, scanning the close woods for any sign of movement. He edged past the trunk, ducking and moving carefully across the steeper ground.

"Ready." The word was little more than a breath in his ear and he straightened, running across and down, swinging the rifle through the clumps of bushes and letting his feet thud over the ground.

Behind them, the woods erupted with movement and Dean ducked and dropped as he heard the demons racing toward them, from both higher and lower on the slope, converging where he'd started. He lifted the rifle, angling it back and both hunters fired at the same time as the vessels came into view.

The cross-fire was vicious, the guns on automatic sending a hailstorm of bullets through the trees, ripping apart the vegetation and the possessed running through it. The continuous loud chatter was barely muffled by the woods as they emptied their clips and reloaded. Further down and much closer, he heard a rustle and swung around, the M60 cutting through the intervening saplings and shrubs, hearing the thuds of bodies as the bullets found their marks.

The silence was inordinately loud when Dean lifted his finger and the gunfire ceased. He just could see Elias' head through the undergrowth up slope, knowing the older hunter was listening as hard as he was. After two minutes, he got to his feet.

"Grouped tight?" Elias asked, voice still a whisper.

"Looks like." Dean looked around. "Two miles to the cars, let's go."

* * *

They could see the line of Franklin's force, bunched tight along the interstate and heading east, their lights fading against the paling sky ahead of them. Dean accelerated a little, swerving to avoid a deep crack across the seamed concrete and glanced in the mirror, seeing Win take the same line as she kept the Jeep barrelling along behind them.

"What the hell is that?" Elias said, and he followed the man's gaze.

Along the eastern horizon, growing and more obvious as the sky lightened, a long line of pale dust cloud was churning across the plain. He flicked an involuntary glance to the north, frowning as he saw the deeper, darker line of cloud there.

"No idea," he told the hunter, his foot going down again, the sturdy truck bouncing on its stiff suspension as he looked for lines of least resistance and problems along the road.

They hit the flat plain a few minute later, and the truck surged forward. The pale cloud had grown in that short amount of time, in the still air it seemed to hang above the flat ground, glinting as the first rays of sun crested the horizon and lit it from behind.

* * *

_**Byers, Colorado**_

Twenty miles east of Aurora, the interstate turned south-east and the 36 joined it. Dean eased back as they saw Franklin's troops spread out along the two sides of the intersection, forming long lines to either side of the county highway.

The truck and Jeep pulled in between the parked vehicles and stopped along the edge of the road, narrowly avoiding the constant stream of men and machinery as they dug trenches, set up tents behind the line of vehicles and moved weapons to the hastily built embankments along the western edge of the interstate.

Dean got out of the truck and saw Franklin standing by the edge of the road, the stocky ex-soldier staring at the cloud that was getting closer, one arm shading his eyes.

"What is it?" he asked, walking up behind him.

Franklin half-turned, eyes crinkling and mouth lifting slightly. "You don't recognise the style, Dean?"

Dean frowned, looking at the cloud.

"That's Boze, son, with everyone he could grab and tanks and enough armament to sink a battleship," Franklin said quietly, a chuckle in his voice. "Glad to see you made it out. How much time you buy with that stunt?"

"A couple of hours, maybe," Dean said dryly. "We took out some of their artillery."

"Good."

"How many?" Dean looked back at the cloud, able to make out the lead vehicles now through the sunlit dust storm.

"Twenty-five hundred, he said," Franklin said, dropping his arm and turning to him. "We'll dig in here, check the tanks behind us and blow the crap out of the road."

Looking past him to the vehicles that were spread across the eastern line of plain, Dean asked, "This a suicide mission for these people, Frank?"

For a moment, Franklin didn't answer, his eyelids drooping half-closed as he considered the younger man in front of him.

"Fighting for your home? For your family and your life?" he asked quietly. "No. Not a suicide mission. No more than any other war this planet has ever seen."

Dean nodded, his mouth thinning out slightly.

* * *

Boze looked back down the road as the long, long line of vehicles went past him, pulling out and circling around to form a defensive line almost two miles across. The tanks and artillery trailers were positioned behind the lines, spaced evenly in a diamond pattern to accommodate the estimated range.

He looked at Dean and grinned. "Right on time, eh?"

Dean glanced up, his gaze moving past the big man and the vehicles still passing them to the horizon. "Who're they?"

Boze's grin got wider. "Got a call from Bobby a day ago. Seems like the Kansas boys decided to join us after all."

"What?"

"You heard me," the hunter said, slapping a meaty hand on his shoulder. "They're your people."

He looked at the cars, trucks and carriers getting closer, coated with the thin, pale dust of the plain, hundreds of them heading straight for them. Franklin, he thought uneasily, they're here for Franklin. Or Elias. Or maybe Kelly. Not for him. Not to follow him.

"Who's leading them?" he asked Boze, turning away from the sight.

"Drew Ryan and Russ Lambert, Bobby said."

"The teacher?" Dean asked, his voice rising a little.

The hunter shrugged. "I guess."

"Dean!"

They turned to see Rufus striding toward them, his face hard. "They're coming."

* * *

The sun was well above the horizon, the air close and still as Dean lay on top of the embankment, glasses pressed hard against his face.

A little over a mile distant, spread out from north to south along the county road that ran under the interstate, the demon army waited. Dean moved the binoculars slowly, scanning the placement of their remaining tanks and artillery, his mind calculating and considering advantage and disadvantage automatically, a simple tactical computer his father had given him with night after night of war stories instead of fairy-tales for bedtime.

The enemy were a little higher, and both sides were well within range of each other's armaments. No advantage there. There were a little under six thousand, at Franklin's best guesstimate, on the other side. With the thousand that had driven west from Kansas, they had almost thirty-six hundred ranged along the gently rising ground to the north of what had been the small community of Byers, a natural defence in front of them, in the form of the small river that ran north-south between the town and the road. It would give them the height advantage if the demon-possessed infantry came at them. The other side of the river was mined, and the cracked interstate had also been mined.

Silence hung over the small valley.

"What are they waiting for?" Rufus asked, his voice low and strained.

Dean adjusted the focus as he saw the unmistakable figures of the fallen angels near one of the trucks.

"For the archdemon, I think," he answered absently, lifting a hand to press the throat mike a little more firmly against his neck. "Franklin, take out the overpass."

"Affirmative."

Rufus turned his head to look west as four of the twenty tanks behind them boomed, spouting fire from the smooth bore hundred and twenty millimetre guns. The shells arced gracefully over the ground in between, striking the thick concrete pillars that supported the big road precisely, sends fragments of concrete and steel outward in vicious circles and billowing clouds of dust and flame in every direction surrounding the targets. Dean's mouth quirked to one side as he watched the army scatter and run from the destructive force, three vehicles blown aside from the concussive force, rolling over the infantry that had been too close to them.

"INCOMING!"

He scrambled backwards down the bank, one hand reaching to grab Rufus' arm as the older hunter followed, the distinctive whistling noise filling the air above them as the shell rocketed overhead. The aim was a little off, Dean thought, twisting around to lie on his back and watch the hit, missing the tank that sat behind a heavy earthen berm, but rocking it sideways as the missile hit the ground beside it.

"Give 'em everything," Dean said, and heard Franklin's humourless laugh as the tanks and mounted guns returned fire, a fusillade of shrieking missiles arcing overhead and a cannonade of explosions along the edge of the narrow road.

"Got their positioning right," Franklin's voice said in his ear as he scrambled back up the bank to see the damage.

"Highest ground facing us," Dean said shortly, the glasses swinging as he scanned the line of fires and deep craters that marked the side of the rise. "Returning fire! Everybody down!"

It was a mug's game, throwing explosives at each other, he thought as he rolled fast down to the bottom of the trench, arms covering the back of his head. But they only needed a few minutes to convince the Grigori that they were going to follow standard battle procedures.

The sun disappeared and he twisted sharply around, staring up as the leading edge of black, roiling cloud passed overhead. There was a scream, somewhere close and he dragged the rifle from beneath him, eyes narrowing at the barely-seen shine and crackle that swept over him. The barrel swung up and his finger was already on the trigger, spraying a short burst into the hellish apparitions that shrieked and dove in the darkening air, almost but not quite drowning out another sound, a distant rumble that kept getting louder and louder, rising in pitch.

* * *

_**Hell**_

Sam watched the priest cross to the doorway and slip out of the widening gap. The perpetual wind that blew over and through the levels lifted his hair, and he turned into it, nose wrinkling involuntarily at the acrid stench it carried. His fingers closed lightly around the hilt of the sword, and he looked at the broken shells of the gates that led down to the second level, picking his way across toward them.

The spell lay quiescent in his mind, as familiar to him as the features of his brother's face, or his own. He didn't question that familiarity or the knowledge of what would happen when he spoke it, accepting that in between the moment of his dying and the instant he'd awoken, something had happened. Something that had left a residue, a lightness and bright energy inside of him that fizzed along his nerve endings and brought a deep, welling feeling of contentment to his heart.

The anger had gone. Completely. Looking inward, searching himself for any signs of anxiety or resentment, fear or vengeance, he was a little astonished and a lot relieved to find none of them. What would happen would happen, and the thought didn't feel fatalistic, it felt certain and full of hope that he would complete his task. And that he would see his brother again.

He felt the evil miasma before he saw the movement in the shadows, felt the thin, directionless wind, filled with the bitter bite of cold metal and the flutters of mental fingers over his skin, through his hair.

The archdemon walked out of the shadows between the levels, the thin flat light glinting from the black metal blade he carried, it's long, curved shape almost sweeping the ground.

"Baal," Sam said, almost unaware he'd spoken.

The demon hesitated at the threshold, torn and crumbling black robe shivering in the constant zephyrs that swirled around the pitted rock pinnacles.

"Human."

The voice was as rawly reft as the encompassing shroud of the demon, as if it came through a throat that hung in pieces. Sam lifted the sword in his hand, and the blade erupted into flame, silver and gold, the light painting his skin and reflecting in miniature against his pupils.

_Nine there were_, Jerome's voice said softly in Sam's head. _Then three_, Baraquiel added. Now there were two left. _Baal and Belial_. And Belial was on the earthly plane.

He'd never felt as peculiarly graceful as he did now, never felt muscle and sinew and nerve work together like a symphony of intent. The demon's sword slashed in a whining downward arc and he stepped aside, the fire-wreathed blade meeting it and the demon staggering back at the force of the blow, twisting away as the silver and gold sword slid upward toward the hood.

Flexing his hand, Sam felt a rush of power surging through him as he stalked after Baal, a strength that was, at once, titanium strong and feather light. He flicked his arm forward and the tip of Lucifer's blade caught the edge of the archdemon's cowl, tossing it back. The demon hissed as the pewter-coloured light touched its skull, black bone gleaming in the curved arch of brow, thin scraps of what might have been flesh hanging from the edge of the high, sharp cheekbone. The light was swallowed by the empty eye-sockets and Sam swung the sword as the demon stumbled back, watching the flames shoot out and reach for it.

"No!"

The sepulchral voice was filled with disbelief. Sam ignored it, lengthening his stride and half-jumping over the pool of sulphuric acid between them, capturing the lower half of the hilt in his other hand as he drove the demon backward, slashing two-handed, the sword almost giving in his hands so that he felt no impact jar when it met the other sword. The black blade was dimming, he realised gradually, each time it met the edge of the sword in his hand. And the demon's strength was failing as well. He pressed forward again, his face expressionless and cold, his strength boundless and infinite, the flashing silver blade chopping and slicing closer and closer to the demon.

Baal stopped at the cliff wall and lunged forward, and the sword's blade shattered as Sam slammed into it, sweeping it aside. When the archdemon dropped the hilt, Sam turned, and kept turning and the silver blade sang through the air, barely slowing as it passed through the demon's neck and the head bounced back against the black rock.

Standing still over the crumpled body, he felt a warmth infuse him, that sense of certainty returning strongly. _Time to end it_, he thought, drawing in a deep breath and releasing it. _Once and for all_.

He recited the spell, his voice ringing out against the cliffs, and the pools of sulphur began to burn and boil in their rocky pools, the ground vibrating then trembling. Turning to look around, Sam saw the huge obsidian gates fall from their pintles, smashing on the ground, saw a deepening red in the depths of one of the yellowish pools near him.

He stepped back from the cliff as rock cracked and fell, the trembling become a roller, the ground lifting and falling under his feet. _Oh … shit_. He swung around, seeing the far ridges that marked the boundary of the first level with the join between the planes and he started to run, sliding the sword back through his belt, jumping as the acid of the pools spat and geysered into the air, lengthening his stride and forcing himself to go faster.

The gates were closing, he thought, his lungs pumping like bellows, the foul air burning his throat and mouth and nose. He had to get to one before they all locked, or he was going to be a world of trouble.


	24. Chapter 24 A Final Glimmer of Hell

**Chapter 24 A Final Glimmer of Hell**

* * *

_**July 17, 2013. Byers, Colorado**_

The jet engines shrieked as they passed from the sunlight into the shadow, the two fighters low over the plain, their grey fuselage darkening to charcoal. The concussive explosions that followed them hit either side of the county road in two staccato lines of noise and fire, drowning out everything else.

A ragged cheer rose around him at the sight of the damage to the other side, and Dean glanced at Rufus, the comms unit crackling softly against his ear.

"Dean!"

"Yeah, we're going in, Franklin," Dean confirmed, rolling to his knees, his rifle held out.

"Jack, Drew, Boze, Tim, Elias – go, go, go!"

Dean felt the surge of men on both sides as he climbed to the top of the earthwork, his attention fixed on the sudden rush of the living and dead black-eyed horde that poured down the slope on the other side of the river. Dirt and blood and flesh sprayed into the air as the first possessed hit the mines, but they kept coming, and he tightened his grip on the rifle, scanning the higher ground behind them for any sign that the jets hadn't take out all the heavy artillery the Grigori had brought with them.

Above the yelling and the blasts, he heard the whine of stressed engines and his head snapped right, catching sight of the fighter as it looped and dove and corkscrewed desperately in the murky twilight. One wing was ripped from the side and the plane shuddered and began to spin, smoke streaming out behind the body as it tumbled out of the sky and slammed into the ground, the fiery impact brilliant against the darkness.

"Franklin! What the hell happened?" he demanded, his gaze shifting to the other plane, spiralling and rolling above the plain.

"The demons, I think," Franklin bit back. "Got the frag bombs on them."

"Dean," Rufus said, dragging his attention back to the valley in front of him.

The second and third lines of buried claymores were detonated as the main force of demons crossed them and reached the shallow banks of the small river, sending car-sized chunks of earth into the air and a thick veil of dust that filled the valley floor. A steady thud-thud marked the launching of the fragmentation bombs and from the corner of his eye he saw them exploding distantly in the sky to the north, saw the remaining Hornet roll and break free of the demon attack and begin to climb.

The world narrowed down to sensory clues, an overview no longer possible. Dean heard the splashing of feet through the water and raised the rifle as he made out the first figures through the thick smoke and dust, coming up the slope toward them.

* * *

_Loud. That's what war mostly was_, Tim decided, the steady roar of his gun beside his ear as he picked off the possessed coming up the slope toward him. _Loud and chaotic_.

He couldn't see further than a hundred yards down toward the river, or more than twenty yards to either side of him, although he could hear the guns of the men that lay with him along the raised earthen bank. Behind them, the constant boom and high, piercing whistle of Franklin's heavy artillery created a cacophonous background to the more immediate sounds, and in the distance he could hear the enemy's artillery, a rumble that followed the ominous howls of the shells arcing overhead.

The rifle in his hands ceased shaking and fell silent and he rolled half onto his side, ejecting the empty magazine, the fresh clip already in one hand, finding the slot and slamming it home, rolling over and lifting the rifle again one smooth, fluid motion. He raised his head slightly, peering above the level of the trench and the stray bullet hit him in the right temple, exiting to the left of the back of his skull.

* * *

Jack swore silently to himself as he saw the movement to his right, half-hidden in the churning smoke that mantled the slope.

"Dean? Gotta a big group coming along the valley from the north."

"How many?" The hunter's voice crackled faintly in his ear.

"Couple of hundred," Jack told him, focussing the scope on his rifle. He pulled the trigger and saw the first few fall, the rest dropping to the ground or lifting their guns and returning fire.

"Sean, you got a BFG with you?"

"Roger that, Dean, big gun," Sean replied casually. "I see 'em."

"All yours," Dean said, his voice fading slightly and then strengthening. "Boze, watch the valley north and south, they're breaking off, trying to out-flank us."

"Affirmative," Boze said, his voice tinny and flat in the earpiece.

Jack nodded to the men to either side of him as the cannonade of Sean's .50 calibre gun began to thunder. They moved down and along the trench, heading north under the covering fire.

* * *

Travis clung to the stick and rolled the fighter again, hearing the banging on the fuselage as he hit a thick clump of the almost-invisible demons. They didn't show up on his radar either. The frag bombs had given him enough clear space to climb another five thousand feet, but he couldn't get through the cloud; the electro-magnetic charges screwed his instrumentation when he got within five hundred feet of the lower level.

_Bank. Try and get out under_, he thought, his thumb hitting the firing button as he caught a glimpse of something in front of him. He couldn't see what the fuckers were doing to the plane but the flaps were tight and stiff and he was losing manoeuvrability by the minute. Straight run, full throttle, he decided, coming out of the turn as another frag bomb exploded to his left, and he saw charred and burning shapes falling to the ground in his peripheral vision.

The heavy thuds on the canopy snapped his head up and he saw gleaming fangs and bulbous black eyes looking hungrily down at him. He shoved the throttle forward as the claws punched through the thick Perspex dome and his hand clenched around the stick when the demon reached through the hole and buried its teeth into his skull, half lifting him from the seat. The plane responded, nose lifting and climbing vertically into the thick black clouds above him.

Paralysed and dying, Travis watched helplessly as the first bolt hit the nose and the lightning crawled in thick tendrils of white fire across the metal, the instruments failing in front of him, the engine stalled. He heard a shriek against crackling of the bolts, the unmistakable sound of metal tearing then the sparking electricity found the fuel in the torn wing and the world disappeared in infinite heat and light.

* * *

Jesse shuddered as the explosion shook the truck above them, feeling Sabrine's arm curl tighter around his shoulders. They could hear the Grigori's chanting, rising and falling and penetrating even the constant thunder of the shells falling around them, could hear the insistence in Lehmann's voice as he screamed out their names.

"We have to obey," Sabrine whispered, her breath warm against his ear.

He shook his head. "No, Hubertus said we have to go."

"They'll kill us, Jesse."

"They can't," he told her, not knowing if that was true or not. He felt her arm move, knew she was touching the thin gold necklace. Turning around, he looked at her, and reached out for the slender links of the chain, his fingers closing around them and pulling sharply. The necklace snapped and fell to the ground.

"We're going," he said, wrapping his arms around her. The other cambion were too old to do what they could do, what he could do, he thought, closing his eyes. Hubertus had told him that they couldn't give the advantage to the fallen, could only fight as the humans were fighting, more powerfully perhaps, but without the ability to wipe them all out with a single thought.

He thought of the huge house in the mountains, seeing it in his mind, and they disappeared.

* * *

Two miles from the county road, the tank sat in the middle of the interstate, the gunner staring through the scope at the smoke-filled battle to the east, his attention on the numbers that showed at the bottom of the digital display.

"Ninety-two point one one degrees east," he said softly. "Elevation eighteen point four five."

The massive gun beside him moved incrementally to one side then rose slowly.

"Ninety-two point one one east. Eighteen point four five elevation," a guttural voice confirmed in the headphones.

"Fire!"

His goggles darkened to black as the enormous blast of flame filled his vision. When it had gone, he focussed the scope on the distant line of the enemy, and grinned in cold satisfaction as he saw the shell hit the tank, a billowing cloud of black smoke and debris rising in slow motion above the line.

"HuAH!"

* * *

Dean looked up at the snap and hiss of wings above them, rolling onto his back and lifting the rifle. Beside him, Rufus did the same and they opened fire, the automatics discharging a hail of bullets into the demons that shrieked and dove on the men in the trenches.

"Frank! The frags!"

The explosion trembled through the ground and he and Rufus rolled onto their fronts, arms curved over their heads as the hunks of debris fell onto them.

"What the _fuck_ was that?" Dean grated as the rumble dissipated and the thuds of falling metal and earth ceased.

"Anti-tank," Rufus said, looking over his shoulder. "Must have something back there we missed."

"Frank, Franklin! You read me?" Dean shook off the dirt and rock from his back as he pushed himself onto his knees. The slash across the side of his face took a second to register, his skin going cold then numb as he staggered back from the impact. The sensation thrust a memory into his mind, and he ducked and fired as the demon swooped again.

"Flares," he muttered as the demon crashed to the ground in front of him, the slick and shining hide riddled with holes and the long, leathery wings shredded and broken. "Godammit!"

"What?"

"Flares!" Dean snapped at him, doubling over as he ran up the other side of the trench toward the artillery line behind them. "FRANK!"

* * *

Boze lay on his back, trying to force his eye open in the eerie silence that seemed to be packed close around him. He couldn't move his arms to wipe at the gunk he could feel sticking the lashes together, couldn't feel the rest of him at all. A slit of light appeared and he forced the small muscles of his eyelids to open wider, turning his head to one side as they reluctantly obeyed, monocular vision coming into focus.

Franklin lay there, a few feet away, face blackened and the blue eyes wide open and staring. Below the chest armour, half of his body was gone, his organs spilling out onto the red-soaked dirt, shrivelled by the heat and dulled by the charring. Where the tank had been beyond his body, the crater was still smoking.

He saw a face appear above him, familiar under the coating of dirt and blood and soot and tried to open his mouth. The face hardened, dark green eyes becoming flat and chill as they looked at him. He couldn't put a name to the face, though he remembered it, remembered that he'd known the name. It withdrew abruptly and he wondered vaguely what had happened.

* * *

Dean stood up, his face stony as he looked from Boze to Franklin, his chest cold and empty. He scanned past the crater and the bodies scattered around it, the sounds of screaming and battle pushed away. The truck he was looking for was a hundred yards further down the line and he started to run, adrenalin surging through him as he accelerated.

"Sean, you there?"

"Affirmative, boss." The hunter's voice came back loud and clear.

"Move the tanks back, at least two hundred yards, all of them, now," Dean told him, skidding slightly as he reached the truck, and ripped the back flap aside.

"Hua," Sean said tersely and gave the orders, running up the embankment to get a look at the lines of tanks. The engines rumbled and the tracks clanked as they backed out of line, retreating from the edge of the slope.

Dean saw the box and grabbed the gas-propelled flare cartridges, stuffing them into his pockets as he looked around for the grenade launcher. There were three in the rack and he took one, loading the cartridges as he climbed back out of the truck, lifting and firing it as soon as he'd cleared the canvas.

The cartridge shot out of the tube, leaving a pale blue contrail and the flare exploded at the apex, the magnesium canister burning a brilliant white light across the field as the small parachute opened and the flare began to descend slowly. Under the intense light, the demons writhed and burned, their shapes visible to the men on the ground.

Loading and firing, Dean shot a dozen more flares over the trenches, the high-pitched screams of the demons and the roar of automatic gunfire drowning out the pop and hiss of the launcher. He tossed the launcher and a couple of the canisters at Drew as the tall, broad-shouldered man ran up to the truck, turning back to grab more.

"Keep it all lit up," he grunted as Russell took the next launcher and a dozen canisters. "They can't tolerate the light."

Russell nodded and turned away, loading and firing toward the southern end of the lines. Dean climbed out of the truck, eyes narrowed against the merciless white glare, watching the demons falling out of the sky, hit by the fusillade of bullets, or burned up by the gradually descending incandescence.

_A breather_, he thought to himself. _That's all_.

"That was a clever trick."

He spun around to face the figure behind him, eyes widening fractionally at the sight of the angel and the hundred men and women standing around him, tall and perfect, armoured and carrying weapons.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Balthazar, at your service," the angel inclined his head, his expression amused. "A friend of Castiel's," he elaborated, waving a languid hand at the Qaddiysh and nephilim behind him. "Who requested that I bring you some help."

Dean stared at him. "Where's Cas? Are the angels coming?"

"I'm afraid not," Balthazar said, his tone coloured with regret. "The rebels have started a war and Michael won't release the Host."

Glancing at the fallen angels and the swords and shields they held, Dean asked, "They going to be any use against rifles and bombs?"

The closest Watcher smiled thinly. "Your weapons cannot destroy us."

Dean remembered. "Good, we got demons coming up both sides, trying to get past," he said, gesturing abruptly to the southern end of the line. "You could take them out, save us some men."

The Watcher nodded and turned, and they moved away fast, long strides quickening to a run as they headed down the west-facing incline of the embankment.

Dean looked at Balthazar and the three Watchers who hadn't moved. He recognised the middle one. Long, dark hair and green eyes, broad-shouldered under the archaic armour. Araquiel, he thought. From whom the Winchesters had descended.

"You sticking around?"

The angel shook his head. "We have to find Kokabiel and break him free. The demons will be sent back to Hell without his control."

Dean stared at him coolly. "Well, what the hell are you waiting for?"

Balthazar smiled and the air shifted as the four disappeared.

The distant buzzing had been getting louder for the last few minutes, and he turned around, lifting a hand to shade his eyes against the brilliance of the flares, staring to the south-east. It took a few minutes before he was able to pick out the plane against the cluttered background but his mouth quirked up as he recognised the outline, the engines growing louder as the plane began to descend.

The Herc lumbered across the sky, under the cloud, bouncing furiously in the turbulence. Dean watched the missiles falling, pushed out of the rear cargo door by the looks of them, and heard the roar of his people as the first one hit the ground on the other side of the interstate, exploding on impact with a massive spout of fire and swelling clouds of smoke. Passing straight over the county road, the plane banked at the far end, its guns shredding the demons that swarmed toward it, and dropped another line of destruction on the way back.

He wondered who was piloting as it made another tight turn, gaining altitude then swooping down and turning west, the shell falling out and hitting something further away. _Just get out of here now_, he thought, watching the plane as it climbed. _We can take it from here_.

As if he'd been heard, the plane kept climbing and banked away, heading south in a long, curving arc.

* * *

_**Litteris Hominae, Kansas**_

Jerome frowned at the message on the screen as he tried to imagine all the implications of the new information. He leaned forward, fingers over the keyboard.

_Is it possible that the Grigori leading the army are not the original angels but doppelgängers created by that machine?_

He hit enter and waited, fingers drumming impatiently on the desk's smooth surface.

"Inner tension is bad for the heart, Jerome."

Jasper walked down the stairs and stopped beside him, glancing at the screen and back to the legacy. "What's got you all wound up now?"

Jerome gestured at the screen. "Alain sent through some new information on the Grigori," he said shortly. "They found the European base."

"Good," Jasper said, pulling the chair from the next workstation across and sitting down. "Or … not good?"

"Definitely not good." He rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. "Luc and Marc found a machine in the building, and at least some of the notes of what they were doing with it."

Jasper raised a brow quizzically. "And?"

"It appears that the necromancers have found a way to marry certain technology with magic." Jerome looked at him. "It seems to be the way they were able to create the exact copies of themselves when they fled Germany."

"The doppelgängers? They use a machine?" Jasper turned over the information in his mind. "And it was used recently?"

"Apparently," Jerome said tiredly. "At least the one in Europe was."

"The copies, though, they don't have the powers of the original fallen?"

"We don't know."

"Do you think there is another like it here?" Jasper turned as the computer beeped softly, both men leaning forward to read the response from the Chambre d'Ombres.

_It is possible but unlikely. The procedure, as much as we can deduce from the notes Luc brought back, seems to be extremely painful and unless there was a compelling need to escape, our profiles on the Grigori in the US suggests that they wouldn't use it on themselves._

"God, what does that mean?" Jerome asked no one in particular, brows drawn tightly together. He reached for the keyboard.

_Why have it if not to use?_

Jasper read the comment over his shoulder. "Diversion? Deflection? Decoys?"

"If they're not making copies of themselves, I don't see how that would benefit them," Jerome argued irritably. "The procedure is too painful for the original and draws too much from the magician to enable mass copying."

_Expediency? Don't know. Not enough information._

The two men looked at the screen and sighed together.

"Maybe they had it but didn't use it," Jasper suggested, looking back at the legacy. "Did Michel get any useable images from the satellite showing Denver yet?"

Jerome stared sullenly at the screen for a moment, then shook his head. "Not yet, another four hours, he said."

"Penemue said that he lost contact when the cloud covered the area."

"I don't think we'll know what's going on there until it's over." Jerome pushed himself away from the desk and turned his chair. "Has Oliver delivered the pastes to the keeps?"

Jasper nodded. "Went out yesterday, enough to drown the army, according to Merrin."

"Good," Jerome commented sourly. "By my best estimates of what they're facing, we'll need every bit we can get."

* * *

_**Byers, Colorado**_

A gust of putrefaction blew over him and Dean ducked, twisting around and firing three shots into the chest of the rotting corpse behind him. He watched it fall backwards, arms still raised with the long machete clutched in bony hands.

Pushing off the ground, he fired again at a wild-eyed woman running toward him, the sigil-engraved bullets hitting skull and chest and dropping the meatsuit as the demon was bound tightly within it.

Not so much skill required, he thought distractedly, as being able to see them coming before they got there.

Around him, the water of the stream was muddy and red-tinged, bodies lying on both shallow banks, spread up the slopes and unseen in the deeper craters of the mines. They'd gotten rid of a lot of the dead army as it'd come down the mountains but even here, the animated corpses outnumbered the living possessed by a factor of three.

The entire area was still lit with the brilliant argentine light of the flares and most of the winged shadow demons had fallen. He looked up the western slope and started climbing again, the automatic in one hand. The rifle had run out of ammo and was too likely to over-penetrate when the army had finally overrun the trenches and for what he needed to do, his auto and the long-barrelled Colt tucked in through his belt would be more than enough. The Grigori were here.

He came over the crest warily, half crouched as he looked along the top. Several trucks were grouped a couple of hundred yards away, mostly intact. The bulk of their heavy guns and the tanks that had made it down to the plain were gone, gaping cracks and craters where they'd been, blackened and the earth and detritus still burning in them. Closer to what remained of the shattered interstate he saw a firefight between the demon-possessed and his men, both sides taking cover in the ruins of the road and the columns that had supported it. He watched a grenade lob gently over the kill-zone in between them and explode a little above the ground, the shrapnel ricocheting from the hard concrete surfaces like a swarm of hornets, cutting down the group of walking corpses.

The sight brought no feeling one way or the other. He hadn't felt anything in particular since Cas had healed him, and had told him that they were on their own. He wasn't sure if it was temporary protection or a permanent state now. It wasn't a concern. He had a job to finish and the frozen emptiness that seemed to fill him helped with keeping that clear.

Straightening up slowly, he started walking toward the trucks. A curl of grey smoke rose lazily from behind the middle of the grouped vehicles and he was pretty sure they weren't cooking back there, at least not in the conventional sense. The back of his neck prickled suddenly and he turned, slowing as a man came out from behind the ruined carcass of a tank, tall and lean in dust-covered dark clothes, weathered face crinkling into a chilling smile as he lengthened his stride.

Dean saw the long, black metal blade in his hand and stopped, hand going to the Colt's grip at his back. He yanked it free and lifted it, the sight centred between the thick black brows as he pulled the trigger.

The hole was small and a thin trickle of blood ran out, following the contour of nose and cheek and running down onto the man's lip as his smile widened and he kept on walking.

_Belial._

The thought hit him and he backed up a little, thrusting the Colt back through his belt and pulling the serrated-edge knife from the sheath at the same time. It looked short and stumpy beside the reach of the demon's sword, but it was all he had.

"Dean, drop." A cool female voice was behind and to one side of him and he dropped to the ground automatically.

Winifred had the Kalashnikov stock hard against her shoulder, her head ducked to look along the barrel as she held the trigger down and the gun emptied its clip into the archdemon. The bullets punched in, expanding and remaining in the body, each one engraved with a binding sigil, holding consecrated salt and blessed water in with the load that spread through the body as it ploughed into the flesh. None of it slowed the fallen angel at all.

She didn't have time to eject the spent magazine and reload before he was on her, long, wiry fingers closing around her throat as he tore the rifle from her hands. Dean sprang to his feet behind the demon and slashed across the backs of the man's thighs with the knife, gripping his neck as it sagged backwards and driving the blade deep into his back, through the ribs. Under the skin, light boiled and flickered, red and gold and white around the spelled metal.

Belial dropped Win and swung around, his speed ripping the hilt from Dean's grip, leaving it protruding. His hand closed around Dean's shoulder like a vice, and he forced the hunter to his knees, bending close to look into his eyes as the vampiric touch reached into the living body and drew off energy and life and vitality.

Dean stared at the black, pupilless eyes, feeling himself grow weaker, the sensation impossible to describe, even to himself. In the depravity he saw in the depths of those eyes, he realised that he'd been kidding himself for years, imagining himself to be evil, imagining himself to have been corrupted and tainted and stained. Evil swam in the face above him, a marrow-deep corrosion that the demon exuded with every gleefully polluted breath.

* * *

_**Cache Valley, Utah**_

The ground rolled and shifted with every step he took, and he stumbled across the broken plain in fits and starts, swerving and stopping to avoid the appearing and disappearing sulphur pools, the sudden spouts of lava that seared his skin with their outflung blasts of heat, feeling his lungs and throat and mouth drying out and shrivelling from the noxious fumes that thickened the air.

The cliffs seemed no closer and Sam shook his head impatiently, stopping and closing his eyes, the triangular chip of metal with its single numeral filling his mind as soon as he recalled it. He resisted the impulse to fling out his arms for balance as the plane spun around him, clamping his jaw shut tightly with nauseating drop and sensation of violent motion. He dragged in a deep breath when it stopped, opening his eyes to see the marker, and beyond it at the end of the short tunnel the doorway standing ajar to the borderlands and Father McConnaughey lying in its shadow.

The ground beside the door was soaked in blood and Sam strode forward, dropping to his knees as he saw the long cut in the priest's forearm, the trickle of blood still seeping out. He tightened his hand around the wound and yanked the sleeve from his shirt, folding it awkwardly one-handed and wrapping the forearm with it tightly.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he asked the old man as he gripped his wrist and pulled him to his feet, ducking under and putting his arm around Father McConnaughey's ribs.

"Didn't have another vial of the guardian's blood," the priest whispered ruefully as he tried to walk beside the young hunter. "Remembered what Dean had said about getting out with that demon."

"_I_ have another vial of Cerberus' blood," Sam told him acerbically.

"Ah."

Sam felt the wind through the door increase, pushing his hair back from his face and cooling and drying his sweat. "I think we're all out of time."

He shuffled through the gap, easing the priest around the edge of rock and bracing himself as the wind strengthened further, pushing hard at them now. The pewter-coloured clouds were getting darker and he saw that the darkness was gathering in points along the other side of the river. Where the gates to the real world are, he thought, shifting his grip on the old man and hurrying faster.

"Pilgrim!"

His head snapped around at the deep voice, shoulders swinging and almost lifting Father McConnaughey off his feet as they both stared at the boatman.

"Come, they are returning!"

"The demons?" Sam glanced again at the gathering darkness on the other shore. A vortex was forming there, he could see the leaves and branches being torn from the trees as the speed and pressure of the whirlwind increased. "How do we get out if the demons are coming in?"

"Come!"

The prow of the boat sank deeply into the grey mud as Sam climbed in, almost handing the priest to the boatman who lifted him easily to the centre. Sam clung to the gunwale and pushed off the bank with one foot, swinging himself inboard as the boat came free with a sucking gasp. Charon drove his oar against the current's flow and the small vessel spun around, sending Sam to the bottom as he lost his balance. He straightened up as they began to move downriver, the oar driving them forward fast.

"Is there a place we can leave here?"

The boatman nodded, his gaze remaining fixed to the river, adjusting their course to one side or the other with a deft twist of the oar as they continued to gain speed. Sam looked at the priest lying on the other side of the centre thwart, his face pale and waxy with sweat. He wondered how much blood the old man had lost in his misguided attempt to help, then caught the corner of his lip between his teeth as he considered the possibility of the strong, buoyant energy he felt flowing through him. Would it help the priest?

He reached over the seat, and looked at the makeshift dressing on McConnaughey's arm. It was still clean, the flow of blood stopped, at least for now. Leaning further, he rested his palm over the priest's forehead and closed his eyes, searching for the source of the clean, bright power inside, for the wellspring of the contentment he could still feel.

Charon glanced at the two men in the bottom of the boat for a brief moment, seeing a flicker of light pass from the younger man to the older, seeing the older man arch upward, drawing in a deep breath and slump back down, his skin less pale, more ruddy than it had been before. He shifted his gaze back to the river, assured now that he was making the right decision.

The boat tossed and rolled on the quickening current, lurching occasionally to one side or the other as it followed the water foaming around the rocks. Sam lifted his hand and looked down at Father McConnaughey, seeing the grey tinge beneath the pale skin of the priest had gone. He gripped the side of the boat and shifted his hand to rest against the old man's chest as they heeled over, Charon thrusting the oar against the rock and keeping them off.

He could hear a deepening rumble ahead of them, and hoped it wasn't what he thought it was. A flickered glance at Charon's set, craggy features suggested that the boatman was using all of his considerable strength and skill to keep them upright and moving in the right direction as the river became more and more wild.

"Much further?" he asked, flinching slightly as they swept between two high, jagged rocks.

"No," Charon said tonelessly, driving the oar into the water deeper and twisting it to avoid another outcropping.

Sam cleared his throat as he looked back at the boatman. "Uh, you know, as much as we appreciate your help, I'm kind of wondering what you're getting out of this?"

For a long moment, the boatman didn't answer, his expression unchanging. Then he looked down at Sam.

"I have carried the souls of the damned along the rivers of Hell for forty thousand years," he said, his voice deep and rough. "It was a punishment. God promised that when the gates were closed, I would be free of my sentence."

Sam swallowed slightly at the admission, wondering what the man had done to deserve a term like that. "Has anyone tried before?"

Charon's mouth widened suddenly, showing a set of big, uneven teeth. "Thousands."

_Thousands_, Sam thought, unable to take that in. "What happened to them?"

The boatman's brows drew together and Sam followed his gaze, seeing the white water ahead, hearing the roar of the falls now. The boat jerked sharply and he was snapped forward, his ribs cracking against the solid timber thwart as Charon dug the oar in and swung it to one side. The light craft spun on the water, bow pointing to the bank and the boatman sculled furiously, driving them out of the current into a quiet hollow in the bend of the river.

The prow crunched against the shore and jerked again, more gently this time. Sam clambered to his feet, looking back at Charon.

"They died. Here, in the jaws of the guardian, or in the levels, or outside when they tried to run from their contract," Charon said quietly, moving forward as Sam stepped onto the shore, helping the priest to his feet and Sam's support. "They were not right. Not the right one."

He reached out as Sam shifted Father McConnaughey's weight over his shoulder, gripping the hunter's arm.

"When the last demon passes through the outer gates, Hell will be closed to mortal and demon alike." He looked at the shimmering mirage of the gate that stood half-open between the river and the thin woods behind it. "Only the souls will be able to pass into this place, and they will never be able to leave. Do you understand?"

Sam nodded. "Thanks, uh, thank you."

"Go fast, the storm is building, the winds will become stronger and stronger."

* * *

_**Byers, Colorado**_

In the grip of the archdemon, Dean's head fell forward and he looked at his hands with a distant astonishment. The skin was thin and papery, dried and stretched out tautly over the bones. Was the fucking thing ageing him? Or taking his life, every particle of it? He tried to lift his head to see Belial's face, but the effort was impossible. He compromised by rolling it to one side, eyes rolling as well as he looked up at an angle.

The archdemon's hand spasmed on his shoulder, the fingers biting into him then loosening. Focussing on his face harder, Dean saw the smile fall away, the black eyes widen as his body twitched and jerked. An unexpected surge of energy returned to him, fed, he thought incoherently, through the hand that still clutched at him. _Backflush? Was that even possible?_

He turned his head as he heard a heavy thud to one side, watching as three of the possessed soldiers dropped bonelessly to the ground, the charcoal smoke of the demons bursting out of the mouths. The long streamers of smoke didn't look like they were leaving voluntarily, he realised, as he saw them elongating against the darker cloud overhead. They looked … like they were being … pulled.

Belial arched backward and for a second Dean saw straight through him, the trucks behind him clearly visible for a flickering moment. His eyes screwed shut as a monstrous wave of power fell into him, his hands flying up and fists clenching as the demon shrieked in his mind, a ragged insectile scream of rage and fear.

Belial staggered back, staring at his lifted hands, as the construct he wore began to break apart. Dean fell back, sucking in huge breaths as he watched the archdemon flicker and distort, face and body pulled from multiple directions at once, the black eyes that had been filled with an evil too deep to define, now wide open in disbelief.

_He did it_. The knowledge finally came to him, and he rolled onto his side, an unconscious grin spreading over his face. His little brother had _done_ it. He looked around, seeing the bodies dropping everywhere now, the demons ribboning up into the air and twining together to form dark clouds that were definitely being pulled or sucked west and south, back towards the nearest gates.

Pushing himself up, he looked back at the archdemon. Belial was barely visible, stretched upwards and outwards, the construct of the man like a vision in a carny mirror, thinning and thinning as he was drawn by the irresistible force to the west.

"He did it!" Dean screamed at the archdemon, getting to his feet, his voice cracking with the mix of fury and a diamond-hard, sun-bright joy.

The archdemon stared down at him for a moment longer then blinked out, a rushing spiral of air picking up the dirt around him and whipping it into the sky. Overhead, the clouds were breaking up, the power that had held them and charged them gone.

* * *

_**Lawrence, Kansas**_

"Not much further, come on," Sam panted, shifting his grip on the staggering priest again and looking out from under the sweaty fall of hair over his forehead as he half-walked, half-ran for the gate.

"Sam, just leave me," Father McConnaughey groaned, feeling his toes catch and drag on the ground, slowing them further.

Sam didn't even dignify the comment with a look. The wind was shrieking through the gate now, buffeting them this way and that, and carrying with it streamers and thinning shreds of smoke, flashes of malevolence and pungent odour that they closed their senses against as they gained the ground foot by foot.

He could see the sunlight on the other side, the thick, rank green grass springing up just behind the shimmering portal, full-canopied trees beyond that. They were going to make it. They had to make it.

The rainbow-tinted air flickered for a moment, thickening and his heart leapt into his throat. More smoke and intangible but easily sensed entities flowed through above him, the wind screaming through the gap and battering their faces with leaves and twigs and dirt from the other side. He thrust Father McConnaughey through as the gate seemed to pulse, no longer transparent but barely translucent, the forest thirty yards away on this side waveringly visible behind it and felt a vicious slash across his forehead and scalp, ducking and crawling as he glanced up. Above him, holding their own against the pressure of the wind, eyes looked down at him, black and ancient and filled with malice. Sam lunged forward, feeling another long scratch slice through his jacket and shirt, through the skin of his back, and he clenched his teeth, head ducked down as he fought to get through the last few feet to the gate and through. Ahead of him, he could just make out the priest's boots, digging into the soft, long grass.

A high-pitched, ice-pick sound bore into his mind and he flicked a look back involuntarily, knowing the sound that wasn't a sound, seeing the black eyes disappearing as a cloud of black swept through the gate and smothered it, carrying it across the river. The gate pulsed again and this time the forest was almost solid, he couldn't see Father McConnaughey or the grass through the gate and he scrabbled in the dirt, driving himself forward, bracing himself against the expectation of hitting the solid gate.

A hand gripped his wrist and yanked at him hard and he fell forward, snatching his feet and legs up, drawing them tight against himself as he felt the pressure of the gate clutching at them.

The wind was gone.

Sitting up, Sam looked around, starting back a little as he saw the leaning stone beside him. In the hot, close air and harsh sunlight, the weathered stone and its engraved sentiment were as sharp as a black and white photograph. He saw the edges were crumbling, the letters were worn.

_Dedicated to the memory of the hundred and fifty citizens who defenceless fell victims to the inhuman ferocity of border guerrillas of the infamous Quantrill in his raid upon Lawrence. August 21__st__ 1883._

He stared at the stone disbelievingly, barely aware of the man beside him releasing his arm and sitting up.

"Quantrill led the group in retaliation of Lane's attack on Osceola," Father McConnaughey said quietly. "They kept up the attacks on both sides in the name of revenge. The gate opened here when the men were massacred and who knows how many of the later attacks were driven by the possession of formerly rational men?"

"We're in Lawrence?" Sam asked, his mind reeling at the too-many, too-close coincidences that kept piling up.

"Two hundred and twenty miles from home," the priest confirmed, looking to the west. "More or less. Gonna be a long, hard walk."

Sam looked at him and smiled, a boyish smile that was free of secrets, of worry and anxiety. "Might not come to that."

* * *

_**Byers, Colorado**_

Julian stared at the clearing sky, watching the twisting smoke stretching out to the east, more and more bodies dropping as the demons were dragged from them and pulled back to the gates. The youngest cambion had fled. Marius and Luke had been killed by a direct hit to the ordnance truck.

"We need to go," Harrer said from beside him, his face worried as he watched more bodies falling on the opposite slope, the human army regrouping slowly as they realised what was happening. "Our advantage has gone."

The necromancer's face hardened and Harrer drew back a little. Julian smiled suddenly at him.

"You're right, Karl. Get everyone into the truck, we leave now."

Karl blinked at the shift in his brother, but turned quickly away, unwilling to argue with the first sensible idea he'd heard all day. The losses coming down the mountain pass had been catastrophic, their ability to overwhelm the humans with sheer numbers reduced hourly as the attacks had kept coming, mines and booby-trapped bridges and sniper fire and missiles decimating their forces and their armament. Julian had laughed at those losses, paying little attention to them and assuring them all that the humans would not be able to field a countering force on the plain where the advantage would lie with the larger army. Even the sight of them, dug in and prepared, hadn't dampened Lehmann's confidence.

The tanks had.

And the planes had been a surprise, to all of them, Karl thought. Their losses had been severe.

"Hey."

Karl swung around, his thoughts scattering as he saw the man come around the truck behind him, eyes bright in the dirt-covered face, a long-barrelled pistol in his hand.

"Wh-what?"

"Time to die."

The bullet hit the fallen angel in the chest and he convulsed as blue fire filled him, crackling from mouth and eyes, lighting up skeleton and organs from inside.

Dean swung around as he heard the rumble of a truck engine start up. He ran past the big Army carrier the Grigori had come past and skidded to a halt, watching the moving truck veering wildly from side to side as it negotiated the craters and piles of debris and picked up speed, heading for the interstate.

_Sonofabitch_. Looking back at the truck behind him, he ran a fast glance over its wheels and grabbed the driver's door, pulling it open and climbing inside, the Colt tossed on the bench seat beside him as his fingers found the keys and he turned them.

Deuce and a half, he thought absently. Standard Army cargo or transport and the same model as the one that had just left. The big engine was multi-fuel and had a top speed of around sixty, pushing it. He pulled out, seeing the belch of black smoke in the side mirror as the transmission responded quickly to the press of the accelerator.

* * *

Rufus looked up at the roar of the engine on the other side of the river, eyes narrowing as he watched the driver weaving in and out and reaching the interstate. A second truck followed, and he bit back a curse as he recognised the skill of the man behind the wheel, cutting through the piles of crushed and broken concrete as he increased his speed.

"Elias!" He turned around and looked for the auburn-haired hunter. "Come on!"

Elias and Win picked up their guns and hurried across the torn-apart ground. "What?"

"Dean's just taken off after the Grigori, I think," Rufus barked at him, grabbing his rifle and shoving the handgun into its holster. "We got any smaller vehicles still in one piece?"

Win nodded, gesturing toward the 36. "A few."

"Let's go."

* * *

Dean felt the accelerator hit the floor and kept the pressure on, automatically apexing the lines closest to the craters without touching their crumbling edges, gaining feet with each tightly-controlled manoeuvre. The truck ahead of him was bouncing all over the place, hitting every divot and crack and hole in the concrete road, and he looked at the back, wondering how many and how much they were carrying. He had no load, and it would make a difference, even with the lead they had.

He had another six bullets for the Colt in his jacket, he thought, glancing briefly at the revolver on the seat. He'd used two of the five in the cylinder. He wasn't sure he'd have enough time to reload when he stopped them, swearing mildly at the lack of time they'd had to get the cylinder reloader working.

_Just bring 'em down_, he told himself, fingers tightening around the big, vinyl-covered wheel as he sashayed the truck around another crater. With any luck, he'd be able to take his time killing them.

The vibrations travelled up from the wheel through his hands as the speedometer climbed past fifty. It wasn't a vehicle made for chases but the engine was good and it was doing its best. And he was still gaining, catching glimpses now and again in the side mirrors of the truck ahead, barely-seen flickers of faces, staring back at him.

Beneath the layers of ice and emptiness, the fury was still there, seething away to itself. Sam had closed the gates and he was within reach of the Grigori, within reach of killing them all. He couldn't feel an emotional response to that thought, just a flat satisfaction.

Ahead, the Grigori truck swerved violently, almost lifting at one side and he saw the wide fissure crossing most of the road, easing the truck over to the very edge to avoid it, gaining another hundred feet as the truck in front of him slowed down to regain control. It was both a confirmation that the driver was feeling the pressure of the pursuit and that he wasn't all that skilled with a vehicle of that size and weight.

The road began to climb and the gap between the two trucks began to diminish more quickly, Dean's long run-off at top speed carrying the deuce easily up as the Grigori struggled to get more power with his greater weight and slower approach speed.

He looked along the sides of the interstate as he crept closer. He wanted something definitive, something to stop the chase and hopefully shake them up enough to slow them down.

A strip of rubber suddenly flew out from under the truck ahead and he grinned coldly, running over it and watching other pieces expelled as the retread gave up. Leaning forward a little as he eased to one side, he calculated their relative speeds and wished fervently for a manual that he would've been able to coax a little more power from. He guessed the driver was wishing for the same thing.

The on-ramp from a crossroad caught his attention and he nodded slightly to himself, hearing the shrieking revs of his engine as he came even with the rear of the truck to his right. He could see the driver's face clearly in the mirror and knew what the abrupt change in expression meant almost before it had registered.

The Grigori truck slowed suddenly and Dean was already braking as well, not as heavily as he came level with the truck's cab. He wrenched the wheel to the right, and the metal panels screamed as they grated over each other, the Grigori truck being forced sideways, the driver yelling incomprehensively and struggling with the wheel.

Dean pushed hard to the right again, and behind them the tyres left thick black marks and clouds of smoke as they were forced across the road's surface, closer to the edge. The driver tried to accelerate again but the incline worked against him now, and the bull nose and bar of the deuce slammed into the wheel arch, driving the curved metal into the outside tyres and blowing one.

Grinning like a shark, Dean swung the wheel over and yanked it back. The Grigori truck hit the guardrail at the side of the ramp and tripped over it, viciously twisting as it catapulted over the drop and hit the ramp twenty feet below on its wheels, all three outside tyres blowing with the impact, the truck rolling twice more and ramming into a concrete pillar under the edge of the interstate.

Slowing down, Dean turned his truck and headed for the ramp, accelerating again as he knocked aside the rusted remains of two cars, the engine howling as the transmission struggled to transfer the power to the axles. He pulled up in front of the crushed truck, grabbing the Colt and swinging out of the cab as the back flap of the cargo tray opened and a tall, bloodied young man half fell to the ground, lifting a wobbling gun toward him.

The Colt fired, and the bullet hit the nephilim in the forehead, leaving a coronial burst of light and a small black hole in the creature's skull.

Grabbing a handful of the bullets from his pocket, Dean broke the old-fashioned breech and slid four more into the cylinder as the barrel of a rifle swung around from the torn canvas. He hit the ground, rolling to one side as the gun chattered, the bullets going over him to and to one side, the simple extrapolation of the shooter's necessary position flashing through his head as he fired the Colt again. The barrel fell and the gun slid out of the back of the truck to land clattering on the road.

_Two down_, Dean thought, pulling the hammer back and getting warily to his feet. He heard the creak of the other door opening and moved back, going around behind the canted rear of the truck and lifting the Colt as he saw a man fall out and hit the road, his hair matted with blood that was still flowing.

The flap at the back of the truck shifted and the Colt swung with the movement. Dean stared at the man standing on the steep incline of the truck's bed. The long, white hair streaked now with blood, a bleeding cut open on his face, the long, black leather coat … a memory stirred restlessly as he took in the details and frowned at the feeling of recognition.

"Winchester, isn't it?" The man's tenor was casually curious and the question dragged Dean's attention back. "Julian Lehmann."

"You one of the Nazis?" he asked, lip curling slightly as he looked pointedly at the long coat.

Lehmann laughed softly. "Ancient history."

"Not to some folks," Dean countered, lifting the Colt and centring the sight on the man's chest.

The necromancer disappeared behind the canvas as Dean's finger tightened on the trigger and a woman was thrust out, the Grigori hidden mostly behind her as she was pushed out of the truck and landed awkwardly on the road.

A cold frisson ran through his nerves as he looked the long, bloodied and dirty fall of hair that covered her face, the thin dress that was stretched taut over her swollen belly and showed the grime-and-blood-covered thin arms and legs.

Lehmann took a handful of hair and pulled her head back. Her hair spilled away and the bright sunlight lit her clearly.

Dean saw her face. The bones were too prominent. Wide, storm-coloured eyes and full mouth too big. Under the dirt and blood and bruises, the small scar from the ghoul attack was still there, over one brow.

* * *

_**Strawberry Peak, Utah**_

The huge house was empty and abandoned and Jesse ran down the hall, hearing Sabrine's light footfalls behind him. The mirror had not gone with the Grigori.

"What are you doing?" Sabrine hissed as he slowed at the doorway to the room.

"Getting Hubertus," he told her, pushing the door wide and walking quickly across the room to the black-mantled frame. Dust motes danced and sparkled in the sunshine as they were lifted from the floor by the movement. Sabrine glanced over her shoulder at the corridor.

_Jesse._

"Hubertus, I didn't get the spell!"

_No matter. They are coming, I think. I can feel the light of the angel._

"Who?" The boy sucked in a sharp breath as he struggled to lift down the heavy frame from the hook in the wall. "What angel?"

_The gates have been shut. The demons are gone. And the commander has awoken._

Scowling as he staggered back under the heavy mirror, fingers scrabbling to keep the cloth covering every inch, Jesse didn't have time for the cambion's cryptic musings.

"Sabrine! Help me," he called out to her, seeing her trepidation as she walked slowly toward him. "It's alright, it's just too heavy."

_Jesse, you and the girl can stay here, it will be safe._

"No!" he yelled at the mirror, his heart thumping against his ribs. "They'll kill us!"

"Who?" Sabrine stopped halfway across, staring at him.

"Nothing," Jesse said, shaking his head. "No one. Please, I'm going to drop it again."

She hurried toward him and caught the corner as it slid out of his grip, readjusting the cloth.

_Jesse, they will not harm you. I can talk to the angel –_

"No," he repeated. There were too many unknowns and Hubertus was not the same man he remembered before the cambion had entered the mirror. He couldn't make decisions like this. He needed to be far away, from everything and everyone to take the time to think, to talk it over with Sabrine. "No, we're going."

_No, wait – Jesse, this is our chance!_

"Hold tight to the mirror, Sabrine," Jesse told the girl seriously and closed his eyes.

The air rushed to fill the emptiness with a soft pop as footsteps sounded down the long hall.

* * *

Balthazar heard the sound and slowed, turning to look down the hallway. There was nothing there now, he realised, wondering what had been there and vanished so effectively. Beside him, Araquiel lengthened his stride.

"Hurry, I can feel him."

"The gates are closed," Balthazar murmured reassuringly. "He should be free of whatever trap the Grigori was holding him in."

Mouth thinning out, the Qaddiysh hurried to the door at the end of the hall, pushing it open and racing down the stone stairs. Balthazar and Sariel followed him, exchanging a brief look.

In the long room, the candles and circles were dead and benign, their power gone. Kokabiel turned his head slowly as he heard the footsteps ringing on the stone floor.

"Hell is closed."

"Yes," Balthazar said as Araquiel dropped in front of the Demonmaster. "So we gathered."

Getting slowly to his feet, Kokabiel shook his head at his brother's concern. "I am all right, Araquiel. Gadriel is dead."

Looking around the room, Balthazar saw the door at the far end, brows drawing together. "What lies that way?"

Kokabiel followed his gaze and shrugged. "I know not. The moment Camael brought us here, I was trapped in the circle, and the last few thousand years vanished from my memories. I commanded the Horde and opened the way for them," he said quietly, his head bowed.

"That does not lie on you!" Araquiel countered fiercely, his fingers closing around his brother's arm.

"Perhaps not," Kokabiel sighed, lifting his head. "But it happened, nonetheless."

"Where is Camael?" Sariel asked.

"I don't know," the Qaddiysh said. "I don't think he remained here, even after I was enthralled."

"Meddling elsewhere," Araquiel commented caustically. "I told Michael he was not a suitable replacement for the scribe."

Sariel smiled a little, then turned as the squeak of the door at the far end of the room.

"Balthazar, we should return to our home."

"In a minute," Balthazar said absently, feeling the presence of souls close by. He lifted his hand and light blazed out from the palm, filling the deeper room and showing him the small group frozen in the open tunnel entrance to one side. "This place no longer holds evil," he told them.

One woman stepped to the front of the others, her hand held out, angled to cut the light from her eyes. "What are you?"

"I am an angel of the lord," he said, lowering his hand and strengthening the light. "I'm here to rescue anyone who needs rescuing."

"That so?" she responded tartly. "Can you take us somewhere safe?"

He stepped closer to them, slowing as the woman stepped back, looking at the gravid abdomens and thin, pinched faces. "Assuredly. Where do you want to go?"

Behind the woman who'd spoken out, another woman moved forward. "Can you take us to the keeps in Kansas?"

"Yes." He turned back to the door. "I'll need your help with this," he called out to the Qaddiysh in the other room. Araquiel, Sariel and Kokabiel walked into the room, stopping abruptly and staring at the women.

"Gather them between you, and hold them fast," Balthazar told them. The women walked forward and the angel saw they were half-carrying, half-dragging one in their midst. "Araquiel, get her."

The Watchers stood around them, hand to hand or shoulder and Balthazar completed the circle. He closed his eyes and drew on the souls.

The air whipped up in a violent spiral with the departure and died away again in the darkness.

* * *

_**I-70, Colorado**_

_This is not fucking real, it's a spell or a trick_, Dean thought, lifting the barrel of the Colt, the sight over the woman's face.

From behind the woman, Lehmann smiled. "You're going to shoot her? A splendid decision! After all, men like you and I need no hostages to fortune, do we?"

_Pull the fucking trigger_, he told himself, a muscle at the point of his jaw bulging as he set his teeth together. _Shoot her, then the fallen. And it would be over_.

Staring at him silently, he watched Alex's eyes fill, the gleam of light on the bulging edge as the tears spilled over the lower lid and ran down her face. _It's a trick_, his mind screamed at him, small muscles in his forefinger tightening infinitesimally.

The cold certainty that he wasn't going to finish the pull swept through him and he shifted his gaze from Alex's face to the pale face behind her, anger and pain needling him as he heard the Grigori's laughter.

The shot was deafening in its unexpectedness. Dean started, his heart jumping in his chest as he watched the fallen angel release his hold on the woman, his gaze dragged down with her fall to the ground, the big exit wound mercifully hidden as she landed face down. A movement to his right twitched the Colt around and he took in the man leaning against the side of the truck, rifle rising, at the same time as he glimpsed the big black auto in Lehmann's hand.

He pulled the trigger, and the man dropped the rifle and fell backward behind the truck, light flickering across the concrete as the bullet ate through him. The Colt was plucked from his hand by an unseen force as he turned back, an abrupt gesture from the Grigori sending it flying over the ramp's rail into the undergrowth under the main road. Dean noticed that Lehmann held something tightly gripped against his chest, then the automatic rose and he looked into the round black bore of the handgun.

The hole appearing in the Grigori's right shoulder was inexplicable until he heard the flat crack of a rifle a fraction of a second later, watching the auto fall, Lehmann unable to keep a hold of it. He dove to one side as a second hole appeared in the fallen's chest, his hand snaking to the knife at the back of his belt and pulling it out. Lehmann staggered toward the centre of the ramp, blood flowing over the leather coat, and Dean lurched to his feet, vaguely hearing shouts and the thud of feet, hitting the Grigori with his shoulder and sending them both crashing to the concrete as he shoved the man over onto his back, and wrenched at the hand still pressed tightly near the base of his neck.

Chain and pendant fell free as he drove the tip of the knife through Lehmann's ribs, and Dean's face twisted a little as he saw the swastika hit the ground. Originally, it had been a symbol of protection, he knew. Probably still was. But it was also a potent reminder of what the man under him had done. He shifted his weight, driving the knife into the chest to the cross-guard and pulling it back toward him, the ribcage levered apart, the bones snapping and cracking under the force, opening wider. Lehmann screamed and a shadow fell over his face, Dean's head snapping up to see Win standing there. She put a bullet in the necromancer's head and the scream ceased.

Working the ribs apart steadily, Dean was aware that he was no longer thinking of anything. He pushed his fingers into the cavity as soon as there was room, and yanked hard at the slippery organ that rested under the lung, feeling the fragile tubes of veins and arteries split and part, the hot blood gushing from them as he lifted the heart up and dragged it out.

Getting to his feet he turned and threw the organ across the ramp, blood spattering as it flew in a flat arc and hit the rocky cutting on the other side. He didn't look at Win, or Elias or Rufus, bending to wipe the knife blade on the Grigori's long coat, and wiping most of the blood that gloved his hands on it as well. The stink of it filled his nostrils and he turned away, heading up the ramp.

Elias watched him go. He knelt by Alex's body and glanced back at Rufus, who was hunkered down on the other side.

"Don't know too many who can take this twice," Elias said softly.

Rufus shook his head, brows drawn together as he turned her head gently, and pushed back the sticky hair. "Look at this."

Elias leaned over the body and saw the small mark, a blue tattoo of two capitalised i's that was hidden by the ear.

"What's it mean?"

"I don't know, but I can tell you now that Alex never had that." Rufus let the hair fall and got up slowly, a memory of something they'd heard about the necromancers niggling at his thoughts.

"I-I?"

"Or the number two," Rufus said distractedly. He followed Dean up the slope of the ramp, Win dropping into step beside him, Elias hurrying to catch up on the other side as the engine of the Jeep they'd brought started, idling impatiently.

* * *

_**July 18, 2013. Byers, Colorado**_

Sean looked around the churned ground, filled with the corpses of the demon army and the living survivors, the injured and those who were simple in a deep state of shock. _What a fucking mess_, he thought.

"Leave the corpses," he told Billy and Jack. "Get our dead into one of the craters and get Davy and Joseph and Phil every piece of medical kit we've got to tend to the injured." He looked around at Kelly. "We need all the intact vehicles up on the 36, fuelled and ready to go as soon as we've finished getting people to a stable condition, whatever munitions we've still got packed up and loaded. Still gotta get home."

Kelly nodded and wheeled around, gathering up the remains of Franklin's garrison as he explained the new orders.

Sean walked over to Joseph, squatting beside him as the medic cleaned and dressed Boze's injuries. "He gonna make it?"

"I think so," Joseph said. "A couple of breaks. His bell got rung pretty good and he lost a lot of blood but he's A positive so I've got plenty to give him."

"Renee'll kill me if he dies here," Sean grimaced, looking down at his friend.

"So long as we can keep him stable, he'll be okay." Joseph looked down at the mess of his patient's leg. "I'm not going to amputate. I've pumped him full of antibiotics and it's clean. The rest is going to be up to Doc Hadley when you get home."

"It's a long road, Joe," Sean said worriedly.

They both looked up as someone stopped beside them. Rona looked down at Boze, her mouth thinned out.

"Kelly told me to talk to you. Anyone we need to get home urgently can come with us," she said to Sean, her gaze flicking to him. "Got room for about twenty."

Sean remembered the Hercules and nodded quickly. "How close can you get?"

"Ernie's put the plane down on the interstate," she said, gesturing to the highway on the other side of the camp. "We'll be able to use Dave's road as a runway when we get back to Tawas."

She glanced around, her forehead creasing up. "Where's Franklin?"

"He didn't make it," Sean told her.

Nodding, she looked back down at Joseph. "Bring the ones who are the worst. We'll go as soon as you've loaded them."

* * *

_**July 19, 2013. West Keep, Kansas**_

Bobby looked up as the Qaddiysh stopped talking mid-sentence, head cocked to one side.

"What?"

Penemue pushed back his chair and got to his feet, turning for the door. "They've returned, with an angel," he said to Bobby over his shoulder as he strode out of the room.

"Angel?" Jackson lifted a brow at the old hunter.

"Cas, maybe," Bobby said, getting up and following Penemue, slowing a little as he heard Jackson rising behind him. "Must have found the Grigori base."

"Then they've killed them? It's over?" Jackson lengthened his stride to catch up.

"I hope so," Bobby said fervently.

The huge hall was full of people when they walked in, and they heard Merrin's voice rising about the rest.

"Move aside!"

In the centre of the crowd, a tall, thin man in gleaming armour stood, wings folded tightly against his back, looking around bemusedly. Next to him, Penemue was talking to three others – Qaddiysh, Bobby realised, taller, their features giving them away. The fallen angels stood protectively around a group of women, and Merrin was kneeling on the floor beside one. She looked up as he walked over, her face drawn and pale.

"Bobby, get the doc out here straight away and get someone to help these women to the wards," she snapped, looking back at the woman on the floor beside her. Bobby took off for the medical offices and Jackson singled out several young men to follow him and get gurneys.

"What's wrong?" he said, hunkering down beside the nurse.

Merrin glanced up at him and moved aside a little and Jackson looked down at the face of the woman she was hovering over. His breath caught in his throat as he recognised her.

"That's – that's not possible," he whispered.

"We'll know more soon," Merrin said, taking the thin wrist and holding it. "She's in labour, early stages but it's been going on for some time according to the others." She glanced at the other women standing nearby. "And it's not progressing."

The rumble of rubber wheels across the stone floor interrupted her and she and Jackson got to their feet, moving aside as the gurney stopped. They lifted the woman onto it and Merrin gestured impatiently at Alan and Todd, waving them away as she pushed the gurney back to the surgery.

Jackson turned to the nearest woman. "I need to know the whole story."

Jane looked at him consideringly. "We need food."

Ducking his head, he acknowledged the blunt answer and hid a smile. "Alan, take these ladies to the kitchen, tell Diane and Pat to feed them up."

He watched them waddle after the boy, all in their final few days, by the looks of it. The keep had been filled with the sound of babies crying for the last couple of weeks, and Liev and Ryan had finished the additional housing that spread around the towers and along the outer walls in small single or double storey apartments. There'd be room for the new arrivals, he thought, but they were going to have to scramble to get more people trained up.

Looking back at the man in armour, he took a step closer to him. "You're an angel?"

"Balthazar," the angel confirmed. "The women were prisoners of the Grigori, but they don't appear to know why they were needed, aside from feeding a monster."

"Feeding a monster?" Jackson's forehead wrinkled up. "What's that mean?"

"The Grigori were keeping one of Nintu's firstborn, apparently," Balthazar told him dryly. "Spelled and bound. Their blood –" He gestured toward the hall the women had left through. "– was a part of the binding. They escaped when the monster did, they said, and have been hiding ever since."

_Too much information and not enough_, Jackson thought sourly. What the hell had Alex been doing there? Alex who had died in Iowa.

"Are the Grigori dead? Is the battle over?" he asked the angel, pushing the rest aside.

"The gates of Hell are closed," Kokabiel said, stepping forward. "The demons the Grigori used were pulled free of the army and returned to the accursed plane."

"That's good news," Bobby commented, walking up behind Jackson. "What about our people? And Sam? And Dean?"

"I don't know," the Qaddiysh told him.

Balthazar looked from the Demonmaster to the hunter. "My job was to help out the human army. Castiel sent me. That's done and I must return the Qaddiysh to their home. There are more Grigori, marching across Asia. This isn't over, you know."

Jackson exchanged a look with Bobby. "No, figured it wouldn't be."

* * *

"BP's falling," Bob Hadley said tersely. "She's nine centimetres, Merrin and they're coming out now, but she's hardly responsive."

"Do you want to do a c-section?" the nurse asked abruptly.

Hadley shook his head. "Give her the picotin drip."

Merrin nodded and retrieved the labour-induction medication from the drawer, hanging the bag from the frame and changing the tubes. Her gaze shifted between the doctor and the woman lying on the table.

Alex had hundreds of pock marks running up and down the length of her arms and legs, double rows, all on the outside of her limbs and down her sides, even a double row that bisected the soles of her feet. She couldn't imagine what procedure had required such a thing, or how it was that each mark was precisely the same distance from the next and the rows aligned exactly. The needles had been quite large and from the bruising that underlaid the regions where they'd been inserted, they had gone deep. Under the grime and blood, she had no reserves of fat left, the muscle falling in around the bone, which protruded sharply against her skin.

"Good, okay," Bob said a moment later. "We're going again."

* * *

Merrin squeezed out the excess water from the warm flannel washcloth, the trickle of the water going back into the bowl the only sound in the quiet room. Beside the bed, the two infants were sleeping, swaddled firmly in light blankets. Both were healthy, a little underweight from their mother's ordeal but otherwise fine.

She looked down at Alex again, the soapy cloth moving in steady circles over the pale skin. They could give her the nutrients she needed, could replace blood and tend to the cuts and wounds but they had no idea what had been done to her, and what effects it might have had on her physical condition. The marks lined up with both the major blood vessels and the nervous system, and neither could think of a reason for it.

Blood tests matched to the ones they on file. And Merrin was convinced it was Alex anyway, although she couldn't think of an explanation. She lifted the cloth and rinsed it again, her gaze snapping back as she caught movement in her peripheral vision.

Alex opened her eyes, turning her head a little as she looked around the room.

"Alex?" Merrin breathed, looking down at her.

Grey-green irises, flecked here and there with blue, rimmed in a darker blue, looked back. There was no recognition in them, Merrin realised after a second, they stared at her blankly.

"It's Merrin, honey," she said, picking up Alex's hand and holding it. "You're home. This is West Keep."

Alex's gaze moved past her, her brows drawing together slightly. "I don't … I don't remember."

"It'll come back," Merrin said reassuringly, hoping that was the truth. "You – we think that you've been through a terrible trauma," she added.

Alex looked back at her. "I don't remember anything."

"I know," the nurse said, trying to keep the worry out of her voice. "You need to rest, Alex. You have two beautiful children –"

She turned to look at the infants and Alex's gaze followed hers curiously.

"They're mine?"

"A boy and a girl, just like Kim said," Merrin told her, grimacing inwardly at the choice of words as she heard them come out. Kim was dead. And Alex didn't remember her anyway.

"Who's the father?"

Merrin swallowed uncomfortably. "He's a good man," she said. "He's not here right, but he'll be home soon. His name is Dean, Dean Winchester. He's a hero, Alex, he saved us all, really, more than once."

She hoped he would be home soon. They hadn't heard anything from Colorado.

"How do you feel?" she asked, hoping Alex wouldn't want to know more about Dean just yet.

"Tired," Alex said. "Uh, sore."

"You need to rest, to get back your strength." Merrin looked down at the lines of black dots that patterned the arm in front of her. "Alex, do you know what caused these?"

Alex looked disinterestedly at her arm, shaking her head slowly. "No."

"Could you eat something? Something light?"

"Maybe."

"I'll be back in a minute, then," Merrin told her, releasing her hand and straightening up. "It's good to have you back."

"Was I – um – gone for long?" she asked, the frown still there.

"Four months."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"As soon as you've had something to eat," Merrin said. "We'll figure it out together, okay?"

"Okay."

* * *

_**US-36 E, Colorado**_

Rufus flicked a glance across the cab to the man leaning into the corner of the passenger seat. Dean hadn't said anything since they'd pulled out. He wasn't sleeping, Rufus could see that much. The hunched up frame was radiating tension.

Ahead of them, a line of trucks followed the straight line of the highway toward the state line. Another hour and they'd be in Kansas. And then they'd be home. He glanced in the side mirror, checking on the vehicles that followed them. They'd lost nearly a thousand and were carrying home almost as many injured. It wasn't that bad for what had happened, he thought. The Herc had lifted off the previous afternoon, heading east with Boze and a dozen other critical cases. The dead had been burned and then buried, and Miller had carved a marker stone for the mass graves, with their names.

It wasn't the losses that were eating at Dean. And he didn't think he was worried about Sam either despite a lack of concrete information about his brother.

"_What about the Grigori here, in the US?" he'd asked Bobby over a glass of whiskey._

"_Nazis, apparently, or Russians," Bobby said tiredly, with a half-shrug. "Made copies of themselves so they could get away clean. Jerome called 'em doppelgängers."_

"_Heard of that," Rufus had acknowledged. "Lotta lore about them, from death visions to messengers."_

"_Yeah, well, these ain't either. Just carbon copies, memories an' all," Bobby had said sourly. "An' we've been looking for anything that might support that, how they did it, but we ain't found nothing and no one else has either."_

The memory returned to him whole. He'd just gotten back from looking for survivors and Bobby had filled him in on what had been going on since he'd left. Carbon copies. It might be an explanation. Even of the roman numeral behind the ear of the woman they'd thought was Alex. Dean hadn't mentioned a tattoo on the first 'Alex' killed but that was understandable. If they were just copies, where was Alex? Still alive, somewhere at the Grigori base, maybe? He cleared his throat.

"Dean, you know that – that woman wasn't really Alex."

Dean lifted his head and looked at him.

"I mean, Jerome said that those bastards had a way to copy people, maybe they copied Alex," Rufus continued, ignoring the warning in the dark eyes studying him. "Maybe she's still alive somewhere?"

"Rufus," Dean said very quietly. "Stop talking."

"You need –"

"I mean it."

The impact wouldn't have been lessened, Rufus thought suddenly. The shock, the horror of it. That couldn't be mitigated or forgotten about, no matter if it was just a copy. It had acted on him the same way, seeing her lying there.

"I was going to shoot her," Dean said a moment later, looking through the dusty windshield, his profile hard. "I had my finger on the trigger and then I couldn't."

Rufus remained silent, staring at the road. He felt Dean turn, look at him.

"Even if they were both copies …" he said slowly, his voice thickening a little. "Even if she's alive …"

"Cas could maybe –"

"Cas is busy with Heaven," Dean cut him off sharply. "And – how the fuck would I know? If it was real? Or just another one of those things?"

"The number, behind her ear –" Rufus tried again.

"She's dead," Dean said, turning away. "I know it."

Hearing the flat tone of the younger man's voice, Rufus wondered if Dean believed that, or if he was trying to convince himself of it. Needed to convince himself of it.

* * *

_**Tawas Camp, East Tawas, Michigan**_

Merrin tucked the phone against her ear as she wrote down the details.

"Slow down, Meredyth, I need to get all this information to Bobby and Jackson," she said, writing fast. "How many successful to term?"

"Ninety percent," the obstetrician said more slowly on the other end of the line. "Eighty percent success even with the triplets."

"What were the problem areas?"

"Age, primarily. Too old. We had an outbreak influenza here, in spring and we lost several to that." In Michigan, Meredyth looked down at the stacks of files that covered her desk. "We had a lot of women who developed complications late in the pregnancy, again, primarily due to age. Multiple c-sections just before term and some of those we lost because everyone was giving birth at the same time."

"But the headcount, you've almost tripled the camp population now?"

"Easily, and a very even mix of male to female," Meredyth confirmed. "If we can keep infant mortality and childhood mortality down, we've added almost six thousand souls to our population."

"That'll be similar here," Merrin said, straightening up and pushing a stray lock of hair back off her face. "We had less problems with age, more with psychological anxieties. A lot of men went to Colorado."

"Speaking of which, Boze is fine, we saved the leg," Meredyth told her. "Renee wanted me to tell you."

"Good, how was her delivery?"

"Textbook, two hours labour and a boy and girl, both healthy."

Merrin felt a wash of relief at the words. "That'll keep her busy."

There was a muffled snort at the other end of the line. "Busy is an understatement for what we'll be facing in the next year!"

"I can think of worse things to complain about," Merrin said mildly.

* * *

_**July 20, 2013. West Keep, Kansas**_

The vehicles rumbled down the county road and began to split off to the different keeps. They'd been in radio contact for several hours and everyone knew what had happened now, knew to expect the injured and have welcoming food and lodgings ready for the combatants. Bobby's reticence on the radio had surprised him, but he'd figured that was hunter business the old man hadn't wanted to talk about over the airwaves.

The news that Cas was in the keep, had brought back Sam and Father McConnaughey from Lawrence – hell, that there'd been a gate in Lawrence – had been surprising but good. He'd watched Dean begin to relax a little more, knowing his brother had made it out alright.

He drove through the tunnel and pulled the truck around to the keep steps, engine idling as people raced down to help those in the back out, taking them into the building.

"You going in now?" he asked Dean.

Dean stared at the masses on the steps. "Yeah," he said reluctantly. "I need to see Sam."

"Bobby wants to talk to you as well," Rufus reminded him, watching as he opened the door and jumped down. "And Jackson."

Dean nodded in acknowledgement and slammed the door shut, ignoring the men and women who made room for him to walk up the steps into the keep. Rufus saw them reach out to touch him, pat a shoulder or smile or offer him thanks or welcome and he watched Dean's shoulders hunch a bit higher under the attention. It'd been the same when they'd gotten back from Atlanta. That adulation had last for months.

Sighing slightly, he put the truck into gear when Riley waved at him and pulled away, driving out of the bailey and through the eastern tunnel to park the truck in Franklin's sheds.

* * *

Bobby pushed a bowl of food across the desk, watching Dean pick it up and start to eat.

"Cas wants to talk to you," he said without preamble and Dean kept his eyes on the food in the bowl. "Sam too."

Jackson's gaze shifted from Dean to Bobby uneasily. Neither man knew how to bring up what they needed to tell the younger man.

The door opened and Bobby felt a cowardly wave of relief as Castiel walked in, followed by Sam and Father McConnaughey.

Dean looked around at the footsteps behind him, his gaze cutting past the angel to his brother.

"Made it out in one piece," he said, putting the bowl back on the desk. "Must have done something right."

Glancing around the room, Sam recognised his brother's tactic. They could talk about the trials and what had happened later, without the audience they had now. He nodded and shrugged one shoulder.

"Had a lot of help," he said lightly.

Dean turned to look at the angel, his face tightening a little. "I take it Heaven's still there?"

Cas looked away. "For the moment. The Host defeated the rebels. Camael escaped," he said shortly. "The angel tablet is in danger."

"Not my problem," Dean said, leaning back in the chair.

"I need your help."

"I needed yours."

"Dean, I did what I could –" Cas started to say. Dean shrugged.

"Yeah, thanks for the Watchers and the nephilim," he said. "The angel flunkey wasn't quite as useful but he had other things to do apparently."

"He had to find –"

"Yeah, he filled me in," Dean cut him off again. "We lost more than a thousand men, Cas. Not that many of us left."

"If the Grigori find the tablet – or if Camael does, they can bring down Heaven, Dean."

Dean got up from the chair, stretching a little as he turned to look the angel in the eye. "You're gonna have to come up with some reason that's a bad thing, Cas."

He looked at Sam and walked out of the room.

"Cas, give us some time," Sam said, looking at Bobby for confirmation. "A hell of a lot happened and we need some time to get it sorted out."

The angel nodded unwillingly, looking from Sam to the priest.

"Did you verify that it is Alex?" Father McConnaughey asked him.

"It is," Cas confirmed. The priest looked at Bobby. "Did Jerome have any idea of what had happened?"

"The French chapter found a machine, in the Swiss base. Seems like it's what they used to make the copies. They're still working on figuring the exact procedure." He grimaced at the memory of what Michel and Francesca had already surmised from the notes on the machine and the descriptions of the machine itself. "No one over there thinks she'll get her memories back."

"The human mind is surprisingly resilient, Bobby," Father McConnaughey said gently. "It's amazing what it can endure and remain intact."

He didn't look at Sam but the younger man felt that the comment was at least partially aimed at him.

* * *

Dean was in the apartment when Sam finally tracked him down. He looked at the tension that held his brother rigid as he walked through the door and past him, wondering how the hell he was going to get through to him. Hit first and ask questions, he thought.

"You gotta minute?"

"For what?" Dean stopped walking, looking at him warily.

"Need to show you something," Sam said, glancing at the door. "It won't take long, but you need to see it."

"See what?"

"It's easier if I show you."

"Sam –" The warning was clear in his brother's voice, in his face.

"Dean, please, just … humour me," Sam said, turning to leave. "You need to see this."

He walked out again, hearing the slower footfalls behind him and hoped he was doing the right thing. He'd spent hours with Alex since Cas had brought them back, at first unable to believe what he was seeing, then trying to help her regain some memories. There were some memories that were coming back, at about the same speed as her health was improving. She'd recognised Father Emilio, surprisingly. Not much about him but had remembered his face.

Behind him, Dean closed the door and walked after him. He knew where they were going. He didn't know if he was going to be able to do it.

It wasn't just the shock. It wasn't just struggling with the things he'd walled up and buried and tried to put behind him. It wasn't just that he couldn't trust his own eyes and senses. He felt the cracks opening up every time he thought anywhere near the possibility.

The memories, as real and teeth-filled as any other, replayed over and over behind his closed eyes. The shot and the hill. Blood and bone exploding outward. Dust-covered open eyes. Maple-coloured hair spread across the road, blood slowly turning it red. The sharpness of the railway gravel under his knees. Her face behind the sight of the Colt.

His teeth snapped shut and he shoved them all aside, feeling his pulse accelerate as he followed Sam down the stairs and along the hall to medical offices.

Sam pushed a door open and Dean hesitated on the threshold, his gaze flicking around the room. There was no one in there. He followed his brother inside and belatedly registered what Sam was looking at.

A soft shock of pale blond hair over a smooth, rounded face. The other, wrapped in a pink blanket, had a little more hair, reddish in the reflected light from the windows.

Sam looked at him. "They're yours, Dean. Whether you can believe it or not, they are."

Looking down at them, he couldn't make that connection. All the time he'd spent thinking about it before had been wiped away, wiped out by what he'd seen with his own eyes and he couldn't find a way to get any of it back.

"And it's really her," Sam continued softly. "Cas confirmed it."

The shuffling noise from the door caught both men's attention and they turned to look at the woman standing there.

It hit him again, an avalanche, an earthquake, a fucking inferno. Everything shaken loose and thrown around and he could feel his heart hammering furiously against his ribs.

She looked thin and pale, the needle marks still visible, the bruising turning green and yellow and grey now, up her arms and along the sides of her neck. Her hair had been washed and was tied back from her face, still the maple-gold he knew exactly, lit up by the sunshine that came through the window.

He took a step toward her involuntarily and she looked at him. And he couldn't see anything beyond a polite curiosity in her eyes for him. Couldn't see the things that had been there, that had changed everything, that had filled him with hope.

Dean walked past her and through the door, turning down the hall, his stride lengthening, speeding up as he tried not to see that empty gaze. That wasn't Alex. It wasn't her.

* * *

**A/N:** I hope you're enjoying the series. The Apocalypse series concludes in Book 3 – _**In the Lies of Celestial Intent**_.


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